A good friend and long time knife collector visited for a few days last week. We spent nearly all our time talking knives!!! Being relatively new to traditionals, it was a true learning experience. My friend not only has a huge collection, but has been involved with many of the people producing and marketing knives for many years. It was great to get the poop about knife history and people from someone who has been involved.

He brought with him a couple of very, very generous gifts. Knowing that I am very taken with GEC produced knives, he gifted me the two very first knives produced by GEC. Both knives were made from start to finish by Bill Howard. Blades are 440C. Both knives are marked with the Great Eastern and Cyclops Steel Works stamps, but no pattern number. These became the 23 pattern knives.
When I started collecting GEC's, I went back in a number of forums to the date when GEC made a first appearance. People were not thrilled with the quality. In fact a number of posters swore they would never purchase one. It seems that Queen was king at the time, along with Case. The two knives shown here are not up to the standard of todays production, but fit and finish is still excellent. From reading archived threads, I can only assume that quality slipped somewhat when the knives went into full production. The knives came with a letter of authenticity. It is interesting note that the knives were sold to a collector in 2007, and then purchased back by Daniels in 2009.
In any case, I am happy to own these. I will now have to look for a couple of 2006 regular production 23's.

To make things even better, my friend included an original Remington 1123, which was of course was the inspiration for the GEC 23's.

Wolfe