Agreed. I had mentioned the idea in a previous post somewhere, of a Nessmuk and a Hudson Bay to start. After that though, I’m not sure where it would go. Those were great outdoor knives. Not sure what else might fit. There are already enough Becker iterations of the Bowie knife. So what other classic patterns? Maybe a puuko?
I remember that comment too, I think it was one of the ones either when Ethan mentioned the BK62 or when the mocked up pictures were being thrown out there with the edited knives.
I think the models available would be part of the cool thing to look into. TBH, I'm using a bit of the self reliance website as a reference point here but there are a few tradesman and trap (fixed blade) models that could be cool, except ditch the scandi grinds. I think the BK5 is pretty close to what would be a french or english Traders knife so something like that with the wood and leather layout. Probably not too much different the the tweeners, really.
The hudson bay would be pretty sweet and I think right in line with the becker theme. You're completely right on the bowie. He already has the kuhkri covered. A machete could be interesting though I'm not sure how much. A bolo is a favorite of mine but I think the BK4 pulls on that a bit as there's a similar theme between the bolo and kuhkri with the forward recurve, just less pronounced. Not sure an ulu makes sense but certanly a useful design. I think a beckerized tomahawk could be really neat. The schrade sharpfinger design could be interesting as I feel like that's a bit of an American traditional pattern, and I'm trying to think of things that are "Americanized" to some extent. So we could get this knife, a good book, and make some connections to what the pioneers and adventurers used and what we have and draw some connection. Of course, when we look at utilitarian nature of many things, they probably used whatever they could get their hands on.
I did some scouting on things pioneers, Lewis & Clark, and similar historical situations I can think of and the cleaver gets mentioned a few times. The butcher knife is mentioned a lot and that's almost too obvious and what the nessmuk is based off, from my readings at least. Then it's the basic hunting knives which would fall into the trader's knives mentioned above. A bird & trout/paring knife is one that was common that I don't see in the becker line, though I don't think the BK17 is too far off. Something like the condor primitive mountain knife seems like a pattern I could see being similar to this, I'm just not sure what the pattern is. It's almost a puukko, almost a B&T, just a simple design with a little bit of belly and straighter lines that I assume are a little easier to make back in the day. That one has the look of some of the images that came of for pioneer knives in a google search.
Looking at the becker line, I think another thing that could be missing is something with a long trailing point and a lot of belly. This is kind of the sharpfinger idea and what I think a hunting/skinning knife would fall under. Maybe the marbles woodcraft design would fit that bill nicely and was inline such a product line.
Last thing I can think of without digging too much more is a seax type of knife that I think would've traveled over with some of the viking adventurers. Maybe that's where a puukko type of pattern would make it to North America also. Leuku would be similar in that regard.
