Hey rmc85....
First off, sorry about the cosmetic flaw.....I take it Paul is making it right....
As far as the hammer marks are concerned they exist in one form or another under the scales of most knives...When blades come back from heat treat there is almost always a degree of warpage and rather than send out a bent blade ya gotta beat it straight....If you beat it on the blade portion it really screws up the sales appeal, soo we beat it where it will be hidden, John told me that if you stripped the leather washers off any Ka-Bar Marine Combat there will be at least a couple of whack marks....It is just part of making knives.......You SEE it on Beckers more because you can remove the scales.....I understand the initial WTF because the first time I rehafted a Puma (retail 350 bucks) the tang was rusty looking and full of little dents and flaws and I was horrified, but I still use that knife and have bought a bunch more Pumas since.....I still like them a lot......I have smith made katanas and wakizashis one of which is worth tens of thousands and the tang looks worse than the Puma did.....
As a matter of record All Beckers are laser cut from solid stock and then ground, heat treated, straightened(beat up) then coated and sharpened by hand...I know of no cast knives that will take any kind of hard use other some David Boye stuff and that is some pretty rarified air you are breathing there....
Hope this clears the air a bit....
All Best....
ethan
