Overview
This Integral Lockback by Ralph Bone features a satin finished blade with nail nick and false top edge. The handle has an integral brass frame with dovetailed bolsters and integral liners and backspacer at the butt, hand checkered rosewood scales with an engraved nickel silver escutcheon, steel backspacer with checkered lock release. The bolsters have been engraved. The inside of the backspacer is engraved "R P Bone 1982". Has some light scratches and patina, otherwise excellent condition for its age. The lock is a little difficult to release because the spring is flush to the frame.
Notes from Huxley Walters:
The subject “Folding Hunter”, produced, engraved, hand-checkered and dated by Ralph Bone in 1982 reflects his superb artistry as a custom knife maker and Master Engraver. Ralph Bone designed and commenced producing his “Folding Hunter” about 1968-69, when he introduced the model as a standard production knife model at the Ralph Bone Knife Company. However, note, also, Bone's perfectly executed fine borderless hand checkering, typical of his artistry at the art of custom gun making, and the excellent engraving. Certainly, this fine “Folding Hunter” is typical of the “Folding Hunter” knives that Bone and Enedino De Leon produced at the Ralph Bone Knife Company. However, the absence of the Ralph Bone Knife Company trademark and the date (1982) confirms that Bone, superbly, produced, hand-checkered and engraved the knife long after his departure from the knife company and after he became world famous, also, as a custom gunmaker, Master Engraver and charter member of the Firearms Engravers Guild of America (FEGA).