The Other's

    I felt this was a good place for prototypes, special runs of models that were non standard and, other things that don't seem to fit well into the other pages.

    Here are two fine examples from the collection of David Shirley.  At this time I do no have additional information concerning these two fine knives.

photos courtesy of David Shirley and J. P. Branam

photos courtesy of David Shirley and J. P. Branam

photos courtesy of David Shirley and J. P. Branam

photos courtesy of David Shirley and J. P. Branam

Here is a very interesting piece to say the least. It appears BlackJack toyed with making their own version of the famous Kabar combat knife. The knife was shipped from the factory to an unknown distributor in August of 1995. I am not sure if this was to be an exclusive or not. Thanks to Bill for sending these fine pictures.

    This is also a very interesting piece. This BlackJack's attempt at the famous Vietnam war era SOG knife. This is a second generation prototype and was made in March of 1994. It is hard to see in this picture but the handle has finger grooves.

    This was an exclusive for the folks at Outdoorsman International http://www.outdoorsmanint.com/. These knives were shipped from the factory May of 1995. To get the low down on production numbers for these I contacted Buck McNeely founder of Outdoorsman International. Buck Told me there were less than 100 of these made. At one time BlackJack was a sponsor of Bucks' TV show. The knives were made for a promotion. Buck selected the design and materials with the goal being to make the ultimate hunting knife. Thank you Buck for taking the time to tell us BlackJack collectors about the knife and thank you Bill for sending the picture of the knife.
 

    Here we have a prototype of a model that was to be known as the SharpTail.  These did not make into full production due to that fact that company ceased operations not long after this model was developed.  

photo courtesy of  O. J. Faust

I don't know for sure but I am guessing these were prototype's for the Woodsman or the SharpTail.

    Here we have a prototype for the still born WildFowler model. This model never made it into regular production before the company closed its doors. 

photo courtesy of  O. J. Faust

    I would not really call this on a prototype. I think this is from an initial production for a model that they ultimately decided not to add. I don't know what they were to be called but when I bought this from the Outlet the guys there told me they were calling it the Gumby. They also said that it did not make the cut because people felt the knife was ugly as sin.  I don't know if this is the real reason or not. Here is a bit of an update concerning this knife. A fellow collector has just informed me that these did indeed get a real name. It was called the Alaskan. What I did not mention before was that these came out near the time of the companies demise. As I recall they came out about the time that the Woodsman, Chukker, and Stalker were introduced. Apparently several hundred blades remained unfinished and those were recently completed by Mike Stewarts new company Bark River knives. 

    There is a few story's floating around about this one. The first one that I was told by the folks at the old BlackJack factory outlet was that this was from a special order the company did early on for a customer that backed out on them after the knives had been made. I am not sure how many were made but I think it was a few hundred two fifty is the number I think they mentioned. It's been awhile.  That is the part of the story I will talk about. What I am not prepared to talk about at this point is the explanation as to why these knives were not marked and were not sold in typical BlackJack packaging. I have seen a lot of these in the past so I know that this second story can only be partially true. The other story was that one of these sans sheaths and marked Ranger was a prototype that was sent to Atlanta Cutlery for evaluation, and possible production in the early 90's. But never made it into production.  I am pretty sure they simply took one of these etched Ranger on the blade sent it to Atlanta Cutlery hoping like hell they would be interested in these so they could unload the knives they were stuck with.

    This handy looking piece was called the Pal and these were made for Dunns. Very few of them were ever delivered. Several that were not delivered were sold at a Gun show in Champaign IL in about 1995.

photo courtesy of  O. J. Faust

    Here we have a larger knife that was also made for Dunn`s.  At this time I don't have any info concerning this knife. I believe they were made sometime between 1994-1996.

photo courtesy of  O. J. Faust

    If BlackJack ever made an ugly knife this one wins hands down in my view. These were originally meant to be gut hook skinners. I had an unfinished blank of  one of these several years ago. A good friend of mine happened to work at the company that stamped out the blanks for BlackJack. The name of the company is Seiberts which is located in Chenoa IL and still works with the knife industry. Thought few know of them. It was apparent straight away that this knife would never work as it was designed. Sadly a whole batch of these had been ordered. Something like 500 or so blanks if I remember correctly. These were modified by removing the gut hook. Leaving a very ugly little knife. They were being sold at a very low price when I purchased the one had from the factory outlet store. The sheaths are also very poor and the knives tend to slice rite through the sheath. If you ever encounter one I suggest strongly that you do not attempt to sheath it if it has not ever been in it's sheath! There are also examples which are known as Raptor Quails. These had an etch of a Quail and were done for a outdoor association. I do not recall which one.