Little help on a Puma White Hunter

kilogolf65

kilogolf65

Joined
Jun 25, 2015
Messages
853
Anyone know anything about this knife, quality, worth (can I ask that as a Gold Member?). Curious about this before I were to purchase.
Puma1.jpgPuma2.jpg
 
Quality is high. Do your homework on the steel though, as specs changed over time.
Worth? What will you use it for - skinning or is it to go into a collection and not be used?
It seems a bit outlandish or quaint in design with contemporary eyes, but back then it was considered state of the art and was -IIRC- commissioned by an organization of hunters for use as a hunters big game knife/skinning knife in Africa.
Some people scoff at it today, but its a knife with important heritage IMO.
Were I to get a knife today as a skinner, the WH would not be my first choice, but I have an old WH none the less.
 
IMHO one of the best woods knives out there for my needs... Your needs may be quite different. This knife inspired the WSK Beck style blades. You can see the same sweep in the blade edge. Puma is a dead on quality manufacturer. They make the WH entirely by hand. No two are exact, etc.
I keep it sharp enough to lop off a hand. :D
This is mine...


 
As a side bar to your worth question, and as a knife lover I adore this question, are you asking worth as in Price? (We cant really discuss that; see the above stickys)
Or worth as in what is it worth to me? And think about that for a minute because worth to me won't be worth to you, Savvy? I'll give you an example, take it as you may. Zoom in on the edge of the WH pic. See those small serations just past the gaurd? That's a bone saw. It works great on leather strapping too. Had a mule get tangled up in the stall with the grandaughter tossing feed. Animal paniced, might have been bad. But Puma made a great knife and it was on me when I happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right tool. Everybody walked away safe. Could another knife have done the same thing? Possibly, but I KNOW what this knife can do.

That's a Pro.
Here's the Con. This is the most expensive production knife Puma makes. Between 3 to 4 bills. You can find them for sale but to get one you will pay twice what a comparable knife costs.
 
The one that you picture is an older model with pumaster steel, a very good carbon steel. If you want to get an idea of value, go to the big auction site and look at ended auctions for older white hunters.
 
lambertiana said:
The one that you picture is an older model with pumaster steel, a very good carbon steel. If you want to get an idea of value, go to the big auction site and look at ended auctions for older white hunters.
Click to expand...
Yeah, as I hinted as in my above post, the specs/steel changed over the years.
Id rather spring for an old one than one of the newer ones, but thats just me.
 
They are not "in style" today but they were pretty much the ultra fixed blade hunting knife from the late 20th Century. Mine is from the 1970s. I bought a new White Hunter for about $25 (IIRC) in 1971 and my friends thought I was crazy to spend that much on a knife. Take into account that you could buy decent cheap sheath knives for two or three bucks back then and few cost over $10. The blade snapped off after a short fall to a hard floor in 1975. There was an obvious manufacturing defect--a stress fracture had formed where the tang was drilled to mount the stag handle. I contacted Puma, sent in the knife and they replaced it with a new one. The replacement has been perfect and reliable. I stopped hunting in the 1980s but I continued to go camping and backpacking for several more years and the Puma along with a SAK were regular companions during this period. Today, it's retired like all my older knives while I use modern folders more than any other type.

It's a great knife with a great history. Is it worth today's prices? That's for someone else to decide. I'll keep mine forever.
 
Greykilt said:
As a side bar to your worth question, and as a knife lover I adore this question, are you asking worth as in Price? (We cant really discuss that; see the above stickys) .
Click to expand...

Since he's gold.....we kinda can discuss that.

(Did he upgrade since opening the thread?)
 
marcinek said:
Since he's gold.....we kinda can discuss that.

(Did he upgrade since opening the thread?)
Click to expand...

I wondered about that...hmmm. If one posts a price point that another site offers said knife for, is that deal spotting ? And since there is gold and registered in this thread does that matter? If a gold member asks the "worth" question can a registered member answer it , on &on & on. I don't come to Gennie Dee enough to know all these details.
The Puma White Hunter retails at stores in Denver for around $350 to $385 depending on where you go. There's usually a lot of dust on the box because the a typical consumer doesn't want to pay that much for a sheath knife. In a big box sporting good store, eventually the WH goes on the clearance rack almost $100 off. I've seen that a few times at Gander Mountain and Sportsman Warehouse stores.
 
That's a highly collectible Puma. The older White Hunters are considered the best of the best Puma ever offered in a fixed blade safari knife.

It is marked W. Germany so it's pre-unification. It appears well used but in good shape, however your pictures are not really sufficient to show condition. Ebay will help with a ballpark price, but if you want a professional opinion, Bernard Levine (he has a subforum here) will give you an appraisal using just pictures. You may want to ask for this to be moved to his forum. Do a Google search, there are sites devoted to Puma knives and this model if famous and desirable.

Current Pumas are cheaper because they are not as good and made either overseas, or partly overseas and partly in Germany. I stopped buying or caring about any Puma made since about 1990. You cannot judge the worth of this older model by the current production prices.
 
All, thanks for the information and yep, I'm a gold member and was gold when I posted.

The video was cool to watch. I'm told by the seller this one is from 1967. He wants $185 and that seems reasonable given what I've read here, on the web, and prices I've seen on the big auction site. I haven't been collecting long but this seems like a neat knife with history and its different than the main stream. A nice piece to have.
 
Greykilt said:
IMHO one of the best woods knives out there for my needs... Your needs may be quite different. This knife inspired the WSK Beck style blades. You can see the same sweep in the blade edge. Puma is a dead on quality manufacturer. They make the WH entirely by hand. No two are exact, etc.
I keep it sharp enough to lop off a hand. :D
This is mine...


Click to expand...

Great pictures - thanks!!! These are one of a German Grail knives,it was also used in 1960's movie sequel of Yugoslovanian - German production of Winnetou, the Apache leader Indian had this knife.

This knife is hard to get these days and have great resale value,the OP should definitely go for it,it's a safe bet.Not too sure of what steel Puma used back then, but 440C was used by them a lot,according to some sources... BROWNSHOE made a point,"you can not judge old blade from Puma in today's prices" Great knife man!
 
Seriousbladeno1 said:
Great pictures - thanks!!! These are one of a German Grail knives,it was also used in 1960's movie sequel of Yugoslovanian - German production of Winnetou, the Apache leader Indian had this knife.
Click to expand...

Wait. So Winnetou is a fictional Native American hero of several novels written in German by Karl May (1842–1912), one of the best selling German writers of all time with about 200 million copies worldwide, including the Winnetou-tetralogy. "American frontier" kinda stuff.

But in a movie Winnetou carries a knife was developed in 1956?!? :confused:
 
Sometimes the stuff they do in movies just ain't realistic.

But you know that.
 
Lee48 said:
Sometimes the stuff they do in movies just ain't realistic.

But you know that.
Click to expand...

Sure, but for Scagel's sake...did they have the character talking on an iPhone too? :D

Its not like we dont know what the trade knives of the era looked like.

Maybe I misinterpreted the post claiming the character carried a Puma White Hunter in the movie. :confused:
 
marcinek said:
Sure, but for Scagel's sake...did they have the character talking on an iPhone too? :D

Its not like we dont know what the trade knives of the era looked like.

Maybe I misinterpreted the post claiming the character carried a Puma White Hunter in the movie. :confused:
Click to expand...
Nope, you got it right: A White Hunter was carried in a Winnetou movie (I believe by Lex Barker in the Treasure of Silver Lake - third link below. I could not stand looking through the movies for the knife, as the movies are so horrible).

The movies were of course hopelessly inaccurate. Written from lets say a romanticized POV and naïve . But then they are old.

Very outdated today. Some movies stand the test of time - these do not.
 
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Spotting errors and unrealistic moments in movies is fun. Guns are often wrong for the era but most people don't recognize it. I knew a guy who owned a few head of cattle and he claimed he couldn't watch "Lonesome Dove" because they used a cattle breed on the drive that were not available in the USA at the time.
 
Funny stuff. :D

Back to the OP, that Great White Hunter, at one time was the sexiest knife on the planet. While not terribly old, and made in pretty large numbers, it still holds tremendous nostalgic value for people...it was their first knife crush. :D

Tough to "appraise" how much that is worth to people.

As far as its "quality"?? Probably not up to today's standards and I'm sure one could get a far better user for far less than the vintage Great White Hunter.

But that's not what its all about.

(And wow...those movies look horrible.)
 
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