I received my replacement Iron Mistress Bowie from Imperial on Tuesday as they had to wait for a new bunch to come in from the Philippones. It was shipped to my home by UPS, signature required. It was delivered to my neighbor and the top of the box had been torn almost completely off. The hilt on the knife was all dented and dinged. My neighbor, one of the most honest and "square-shooting" people you could ever wish to meet swears that the box arrived that way. I called Imperial and they are going to have UPS pick it up. I am in the process of trying to arrange that right now. Meanwhile, they are sending me another.
As an aside, the hilt on the one that they sent had this blonde wood stripe down it. Clyde, the owner of Imperial, told me that the wood in the hilts of his weapons is "tiger wood" and that it has variegated colors to it. He says that it is a very much demanded exotic hardwood. I pointed out that, for reproduction bowies, I am not so certain that this is a good choice as bowies are something of an American icon and those who collect them have very definite ideas of how they should appear and tiger striped wood hilts is not included in those ideas, at least not in mine. He went though his inventory and found me one that did not have any striping to it.