All About Pocket Knives

I'm seeing a suspiciously large number of mint-condition Western/Boulder knives with long blades and handles of very uncommon bright colors in perfect leather sheaths being offered on ebay. Has anyone else noticed them? I think they're fakes. Western moved from Boulder in 1978.

The pictured knife is mine and the corrosion along the tangs speaks to its age. It was a gift from an elderly man I was visiting thirty years ago, merely because I admired it. Now, I'm elderly.



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The knife pictured is 100% correct. Not sure what knives but there are 2 or more sellers on eBay that have routinely offered reworked Western knives over the past couple of years. These reworked knives will most often have handle materials that were never offered by Western.

Hey, dawdle, welcome to AAPK.

Yes, there are a couple of rehandlers on fleabay that claim their knives are "mint" and use handle material that didn't exist at the time the knives were originally made. The biggest tell on many of them, other than the obviously non-original materials, is that the model numbers frequently are "L"s and the handle material is artificial.

You are correct in that Western moved operations from Boulder to Longmont in 1978. However, BOULDER, COLO. was dropped from the ricassos and tangs starting in 1973 after they bought the Longmont property in 1972 in anticipation of the move.

I have collected Westerns for over 20 years and this model with the cracked ice handles are fairly common around here. I have 4 or 5 of them and they all have started gassing. I have two that would be near mint except for the celluloid decomposing and those two I leave out in the air and clean them about once a year. Several others that were near mint, I have put wood or Sheep horn on. I have a lot of celluloid knives, mostly folders of many makers, and almost none of the other ones have gassed. For some reason these Westerns tend to. They sure are an attractive knife.____Dave

Thank you for the word on gassing. My handles are intact, so far, but I guess this knife should be stored separately from other metal objects?

I'd keep the knife separate from others just to be safe. It is always the celluloid layer under the marine pearl type outer layer that outgasses and you will see it start to cloud and crack when it starts to go bad.

I also had a couple of those in near mint condition that started gassing out after I had them for ten years. I gave them away. Both of mine also came in fancy embossed sheaths with fancy lacing.