OK, I got this Mac MkII in today and the first thing that comes to mind is that it is "OK" for $100, which is nothing in the vintage Gerber Mark II world. A middle of the road condition Vietnam era 1970 through 1975 will bring a minimum of $500 and a good condition 1965 through 1969 Gerber Mark II is going to cost as much as $2500. It is a knife that originally retailed for about $20 in 1965, but then the minimum wage at that time was $1.25. With a minimum wage of $16 today (using the same cost to Min wage ratio) that makes the current retail for one about $256. So, even though there are differences in this knife; a retail price of $100 is not too bad.
I have been collecting Gerber Mark II's, at different levels of interest, since the 1970's. I have had one from almost every production year between 1966 and 1980 at some point but not many of the really special ones like the color handle models in Yellow, Orange, or Gold. Now I just have a few that I like and are not that expensive. I traded away the high dollar and most of the rare models that I used to own. So , I am using a few that are pretty close to the originals and / or have similar features to the MAC MKII knife.
First let's look at what the Mac MkII knife is. Dimensionally it is a fairly good copy of a Gerber Mark II knife from the 1969 - 1970 period, but between the materials, handle paint, blade finish, and blade length it is easy to tell the difference. Here are a few pictures then I will go down some of the specifics.
The Box is nice.
I am going to break this comparison down to the knife and then the sheath and within those categories I will talk about appearance, materials, construction and dimensions. Let look at the blade first. The Mac MkII has a blade made of 440C. The Gerber models started with a blade made of Forged L6 and have had others down through the years and in different special models which include g round L6, 440C, 440A, 420HC, 154CM, and S70V. The bead blasted finish of the blade on this MAC MkII is one area that greatly deviates from the original Gerber MkII's which generally have a hand ground finish running longitudinally along the blade, but the latest model was black coated.
The dimensions and blade shape are a bit different between the MAC and the Gerber. The older models were all hand ground and therefore the blade shape and dimensions had some variations but later models were CNC machined, so they were very consistent. I had a couple over the years that had some blade grinds odd enough that I sent pictures to Gerber to verify that they were original and they all were. That being said, the MAC knife has a very narrow waist grind to it, about 0.013" smaller than a 20th Anniversary model and 0.008" less than a 70th Anniversary model, but I have seen some old knives that were very narrow. The width and thickness of the blade at the bulge is about the same on the MAC Knife versus the Gerber 70th Anniversary model MkII. One disappointing thing is that the MAC Knife blade is shorter than any of my Gerber Mark II's and at the most about .027" shorter than at least one of my Gerber Mk II's. The MAC Knife was about the same thickness and width at the ricasso. One advantage, according to the manufacturer, is that the blade tang, which is inserted into the handle is longer than the Gerber's.
The handle is close to the same dimensions as the MkII's with the Cat's Tongue handles like the 20th Anniversary model. It differs a bit more when compared to the thicker Armorhide handles like the 1976 model that I compared it to. The cast aluminum handles are going to have some variance just due to the casting process and the differences in how that was performed in the 1970's versus today. I did notice that the groove in the handle between the gray grip section and the black fingerguard section was shallower on the Mac MkII. The color of the paint on the Mac Knife did seem lighter than my 1976 model but that may also be due to the age of the Gerber.
One pretty disappointing part about the MAC Knife was that the blade was (in the immortal words of Foghorn Leghorn) about as sharp as a bowling ball. In this picture you can see me holding the weight of the MAC knife in my fingers by the blade edge. I would not do this with any of my Gerber MKII's. In the second picture I am lightly touching the edge on one of my 20th Anniversary MkII's and I felt a bit at risk doing that.
The sheaths are similar in general shape and design but that is as far as it goes. They are different in tanning, color, thickness of material (the mac Sheath is actually a bit thicker), overall length, rivet style and material. The strap comes from the left, like the later Gerber knives and the edges of the leather are not detailed like any of the Gerber leather sheaths. Mac did not include any leather or other lie down or lanyard thongs, but they did put a wire military belt hook, unlike some pictures that I have seen of previous models.
I have posted as many pictures as this post will allow so I will stop here. I think I have covered a lot of the details I wanted to but certainly have forgotten to mention some things. If there is something else that you would like to know about these knives, please post a comment / question and I will try to answer them. And if you just want me to post more pictures of any of these knives let me know and I will try to do that as well. Thanks for looking.
Regards, Vincent
