BLADE Magazine

If there’s such a thing as the First Family of Knives, the Buck family is it.

Buck Knives has been run by a member of the Buck family—Hoyt, Al, Chuck or CJ—since “H.H. Buck and Son” set up shop in 1945. Since that time, the name Buck has become synonymous with fine hunting, sporting and other knives, and Al, Chuck and CJ help comprise the only family with three members to be inducted into the BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall Of Fame*.

According to The Story of Buck Knives … A Family Business by Tom Ables, in 1946 “Buck’s knives were all created from used metal files that had been discarded by Consolidated Vultee, the huge aircraft manufacturing plant that later became Convair. These worn-out files, with their heavy carbon content, were perfect for the toughness and edge-holding qualities that Hoyt Buck required in his knives.”

Al joined his father full time in 1947. “[Al] learned how to laminate the thin strips of Lucite plastic used on the handles,” The Story of Buck Knives noted. “He learned how to separate and drill the handles themselves. Later, he learned how to temper the blades so painstakingly sharpened by his dad.”

Sadly, Hoyt learned he had cancer in 1948 and the dreaded disease claimed his life a short year later. He was only 59. Al assumed the company reins and guided it successfully through the 1950s and into the “modern age” of the 1960s. Buck incorporated in 1961, with a young Chuck Buck on the board of directors. The company began making the iconic Buck 110 Folding Hunter on a full production basis in September 1964. The knife’s sales jumped in 1965, increased 63 percent in 1966 and vaulted another 60 percent in 1967.

The knife industry would never be the same again.

Buck flourished under the direction of Al in the 1970s and ’80s, offering the latest in knife designs, materials and more. Along with the legendary Jimmy Lile, Howard Cole and William R. Williamson, Al was inducted into the Cutlery Hall Of Fame at the 1984 BLADE Show.

As the September/October 1984 issue of BLADE® noted in reference to Al and the 110. “Buck didn’t invent the lockback, but he certainly popularized it, and despite a flood of other lockbacks, the Buck knife still leads the way. If you are carrying a lockback today, you can thank Al Buck for his enduring promotional efforts. You have a safer knife for it.”

Chuck was next in line to be inducted into the Cutlery Hall Of Fame, being inducted along with Blackie Collins in 1996. Chuck was a part of the Buck family business from childhood. By 1970 he was corporate vice president for manufacturing, involved in all aspects of the process, from purchasing to personnel to packaging. In 1979 he became company president. Through Chuck’s leadership, the company completed a modern new plant and corporate headquarters in 1980 with 4.5 acres under one roof.

Under his direction the company grew and prospered, winning several BLADE Magazine Knife-Of-The-Year® Awards. By 2004 he was Buck Knives chairman and helped oversee the company’s historic move to Post Falls, Idaho, from El Cajon, California, in 2005.

CJ was inducted into the Hall in 2016 following a career that saw him begin by working on the Buck production line in 1978. For 21 years he handled numerous company promotions and responsibilities. In 1999 he was named president of Buck Knives and, in 2001, CEO. In 2015 he was named Buck chairman of the board. He is a co-founder of the American Knife & Tool Institute (AKTI), serving multiple terms as AKTI president, and is the AKTI’s current CEO. He played a pivotal role in the AKTI’s historic defeat of an attempt by U.S. Customs to classify all one-hand-opening knives as switchblades in 2009. Ironically, today, thanks to the efforts of such organizations as AKTI and Knife Rights, switchblades—better known now as automatics—are being legalized in more and more states, and there’s even an effort under way to repeal the archaic Federal Switchblade Act of 1958. In addition, under CJ’s leadership, Buck has an entire line of automatics, including one of its latest—a version of the iconic 110 in full auto mode, no less.

The only family with three members in the Cutlery Hall Of Fame, the Bucks can legitimately lay claim to being the First Family of Knives. Their contributions speak for themselves.

•Uncle Henry and Al Baer of the original Imperial Schrade and A.G. and Goldie Russell are the only brothers and husband and wife, respectively, to be inducted into the Cutlery Hall Of Fame.

Fake knives—better known as counterfeit knives—are a worldwide problem that needs everyone concerned to pay attention, and National Fraud Awareness Week Nov. 12-18 is a good time to sit up and take notice.

Factory knife companies are especially prone to having their knives counterfeited by nefarious operations, the latter usually based overseas. The American Knife & Tool Institute has a dedicated program tailored to fight the plague of fake knives, and other cutlery companies such as Browning, CRKT, Cold Steel, Chris Reeve Knives, Knifeart and others have websites that address the scourge.

What can you do? Visit the above sites and others and familiarize yourself with the situation concerning counterfeits of those companies’ knives. While some custom knives are victims of counterfeits as well, it’s largely the factory guys that are targeted simply because their knives are recognized by many and sold on a much larger scale than custom knives, and can earn the counterfeiters much more illicit money as a result.

One thing to keep in mind is exactly what is meant here by counterfeit knife. We are not talking about design features, designs, etc., that are “knocked off” without the original maker/designer’s OK or approval. That is another matter entirely. There are some instances of where knockoffs are done and the parties involved eventually wind up in court to settle the issue. If the matter cannot be resolved otherwise, the original designer ultimately may have to prove that the design feature, design, etc., is his or hers exclusively, it has not appeared on another knife before, etc. As you can imagine, since knives have been around since the dawn of humanity, such a thing many times can be very difficult to prove. However, again, knockoffs are not the issue here.

The issue here is a counterfeit knife in which the counterfeiter has copied everything in question about the knife, from the knife’s exact features, blade stamp and even the product box in which the knife is packaged. The product box even will illegally sport the knife and company’s name, the company’s address, etc. Then, when the unsuspecting buyer purchases the fake knives and sends them to the company about a warranty issue, the company in question has the unsavory duty of telling the buyer that he or she has been duped by counterfeits, and the company cannot honor the warranty. The buyer is then stuck with worthless fake knives.

Some of the counterfeits are easy to identify because they are shoddily done. Others, however, are not as easy to spot. It’s a growing problem, one that knife companies and knife enthusiasts everywhere—including you—must continue to deal with and be vigilant about. For more information look for Daniel Jackson’s story on counterfeit knives in the January 2018 BLADE®, on newsstands Dec. 26.

Great knives have face. I’m not talking about a face like on a Halloween mask, but a knife with a design or style that’s recognizable by a large number of knife enthusiasts as having been made first by one knifemaker and one knifemaker only.

The face, in this instance, is the unmistakable knife design or style of the maker in question.

How the term came about I’m not exactly sure but I’ve heard it from or read it written about by long-time observers of the knife scene, including BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-Fame© members Bernard Levine, Bruce Voyles and others. One explanation of face that applies here is that I may not know or remember a person’s name, but if I know his or her face I almost always instantly recognize it. The difference in the instance of knives with face is that I recognize both the knife design or style and the maker’s name.

There are at least two provisos: 1. To fully qualify as a knife with face the knife must be recognizable by a large number of knife enthusiasts. Now, there no doubt are great knives made by makers that one or a few enthusiasts may recognize as being the knives of specific makers, but the ones that really fill the bill are the ones many enthusiasts can look at and say, “Yep, that’s so-and-so’s knife.” It’s effective in terms of a conversation starter among knife enthusiasts who are friends, or as a conversation icebreaker among those who have just met. They don’t know each other but they do know great knives with face.

2. Some of the makers of knives with face have had their designs with face emulated by many others. Even so, if the knife has face those who recognize it will say that it’s in the style of the maker who originated it.

Following is a selection of great knives with face and why they qualify. Enjoy!

1. The Bob Loveless dropped or drop-point hunter. The Loveless drop-point hunter is one of the great knives with face on this list that meets Proviso 2 above. While it may not appear to be all that unusual, the drop-point style of the blade—where the blade tip falls below the plane of the spine—is something Loveless popularized in the 1970s and ’80s, and it remains his signature style to this day.
2. The Bill Moran style. Actually, as with Loveless, any number of Moran knives have face, though I’ve chosen one of my favorites: the ST-24.  The flowing blade with a long clip point and ergonomically contoured dropped handle with silver wire inlay is unmistakably a Moran.
3. The Michael Walker style. Walker’s linerlock folder changed knives forever but he also makes models unlike anyone else. Outfitted with any number of his clever and innovative locks, each of which gives the handle a notably different look at the pivot, Walker’s knives use the latest and most exotic materials, are embellished in any number of creative and ornate ways, and usually have some of the most interesting blade shapes you’ll ever see.
4. The Jurgen Steinau style. When I first saw one of Jurgen Steinau’s knives, at first I wasn’t even sure I was looking at a knife. The designs, angles and materials of his knives are like something from a book on intergalactic architecture. Suffice it to say, Steinau’s great knives have face—and then some!
5. Jim Schmidt’s Goblin Folder. Schmidt’s Goblin Folders have face in more ways than one. Not only do they have the face of a goblin on the handle’s stag butt, but that face makes the knife unmistakable as the style originally made by Mr. Schmidt. A number of his other models have face as well.

There are others who make great knives with face. Which ones make your list?