He Moose... just enjoying myself. Information is flooding in now and my inbox is filling up. I'm going to post some raw data and try to make sense of this later. I've never seen the Randall community rally like this.
I received this message and the following pictures from James. The "story" is quite amazing, and what's more, believable. Gary's coolie cap may have been dethroned...
from James: "Good day here are some pic's from a Model 12 that is considered to be a very early or even one in the first Bowies that was made to test the size and balance of a big knife that they copied from the movie the iron mistress. The Bowies showed up in the catalog in 54. This bowie was purchased years ago from a well-known authorized dealer who said ( never buy the story buy the knife) when he showed it to Gary and he remembered the knife as one of the first.
"It has a huge ivory handle, over 2 inches at the cap. It also can be dated to 52-53 by the fact it was made with leather spacers. Leather spacers was an experiment that lasted a very short time on ivory and stage knives to act like a cushion to stop cracking of the material. The leather corroded and stopped being used. This bowie is also special because it has 1/4 leather spacers not the more common much thinner ones."
Sheath for James? Bowie
Part of James? collection.