Being a Craftsman is part of the reason I feel it's possible that Bo left the first one alone. I still have my first flute. By later standards it was rudimentary, but I was proud of it as it was my first. Bo may not have had that sentiment.
Joe, you commented:
"There was also conversation if Bo ever really completed the original knife as shown in the 1937 photo. It is not pinned, and the discussion revolved around whether he had the tang just stuck in the handle for the photos. It seems likely no pitch was holding the tang within the stag and the hilt wasn't soldered to the blade."
The knife looks complete to me. Why would he have a sheath made for an unfinished knife? I remember in the book when he lived on the golf course going out to show his friends the knife, and one of them wanted to buy it on the spot. He didn't sell it because it wasn't finished and it didn't have a sheath.
Note the other 2 completed knives in the following photo. So it appears to me that he completed this one and 2 others being his earliest knives.
In the following photo of page 38 of the book, Bo describes step by step how he made the knife.
Bo describes the task of filing and shaping the hilt and spacers.
I suppose he could have been describing the building of another knife, as it had a pin, not 2. So because we have a photo of 3 rudimentary earlier designs, it seems to preclude the knife in the 1938 photo formerly owned by Rhett from being the first, doesn't it? If we follow the story that he built the knife without gluing it together, put it to the side and built others improving his skills, then revisited it later and reconfigured it to a more modern look, that would not IMO qualify it as his first knife. Only the raw steel and the stag in it would be considered earlier. His first completed knife would defer to one of the other two that he originally made.
To use an analogy, it's like Henry Ford taking his first model T, reworking it because he likes the look of the more refined model A, then claiming the Model A was his first car.
I think Al Marchand originally forged 3 blades for Bo, and in the photo above showing 3 completed knives with sheaths, it appears that he completed his task. With those 3 appearing to be rudimentary in comparison to the 1938 knives.
So I see a natural progression in skill level with the 1938 batch the ones displaying more refined looking knives.