I can not predict the future, in fact I would say I have at least a 90% future forecast failure rate.
I purchased my first Randall, a #1 in 1978, since then have a couple of Model 14's, a trout and bird, and the diving knife. Used to go by the shop and pick up knives that were ordered, but never paid for. Quality on Randall knives was variable, I want even bevels, a straight edge, and not all knives were that way. I don't know how they are doing now. I think Randall goes through periods.
The older stainless knives were 440A or 440B, but I know they were not 440C, because one of the Randall sons told me the metal. Randall was slow on adopting the latest steels, might be due to forging. Randall was very proud of their forging of blades from billets, and I don't know how well the latest and greatest steels forge.
At the time, Randall knives were thicker, stouter, than commercial knives. The handles were longer, actually made to fit a human hand. Most knife handles fit human proportionality biases. That is, a knife with a small blade looks odd with a long handle. So you get these small blade knives with two or three finger handles, because customers shun a knife that looks odd. Similar issue with big blades. The bigger the blade, the bigger then handle. Some big knife handles are the width of ham hocks!
As much as the trout and bird was an advanced design for its time, its wedge blade does not slice well. A Randall blade is very wedgie as this is a distinguishing characteristic of Randall knives.
I am surprised the same basic models continue to sell, as the commercial market has gone way beyond the dismal decades of the 60's, 70's, 80's, and even into the mid 90's. Today there are so many factory outstanding designs, with outstanding steels , that cost a lot less than a Randall. And you can have them delivered now. Also, the thin "Solingen Steel", "Surgical Steel" knives of the past have been replaced with more robust models, so you don't have to order a custom knife to have a strong knife.
A Green Beret friend of mine, said that during the early 1960's "every Infantry Officer had a Randall." I don't think this is true anymore, and at the PX there is a good selection of well built, well made, "throw away" knives at reasonable prices. A Randall would be a very expensive knife to lose, and you are not in control of your personal safety in a war zone. You get blowed up, not everything of yours gets tossed on the stretcher, and you lose equipment. A bud of mine wrote back to his unit in Afganistan, seeking the return of his favorite Aladdin Stanley thermos. It had been run over by a MRAP, lost its handle, dropped several hundred feet, and yet the vacuum was still good and he treasured it as it was as beat up as himself. One IED later, he was on the medevac helocopter, and then to Europe, but his thermos was still in Afganistan.
Heck if I know what the future is for Randall. I don't know if the average buyer is like the average Harley buyer, some old Boomer spending their money on Kennedy era administration memories. Markets change, I don't know how this one will change.
Don't buy one because you want to make money on it, buy it because you want one. That way, if the market turns, you still have something you value.
), that’s just part of the game...Don’t play if you can’t mentally relinquish the losses, it’ll keep you awake at night and that’s not a good thing...
