Well if they made 200(I don't find that number and expect it to be more like 210+), maybe the first 81 were Bocote; the next 19 were Chocolate Bone; the last 110 were Diamondback Bone. They didn't start the serial numbers over for each handle material.
I didn't care for that 3Blade either, until I got it in-hand. Something about that expensive little beast...
Hi Rusty. I am still confused. Rusty a question how do you tell a PROTOTYPE in GEC? Cool link you provided. I went back and added all the different shield varieties together and found GEC only showa a total Production of each of the shield types on the 23 Pattern at 244, 227, & 21o. I am still Corn-fused!!
Great Eastern branded (Northfield, Tidioute, Great Eastern) prototypes will have a large main blade etch "Prototype". The Bulldog branded variants are etched at the Bulldog shop and probably on the back of the main blade in a more subtle metal etching.
Be careful unless you get prototypes of a variant that was never actually made at all; which is the true reason for prototypes (to pick on variant over another for final production). There is a large market for proto's and they are quite easy to counterfeit if the only difference is the etching....
OK, maybe you hit the numbering sequence on the head 210 made of the 23 pattern in the Tidioute Shield they had 3 digfferent Jigging patterns. Apparrently all the Spay blades were all etched before assembly and GEC had plans to manufacture 250 total knives but only wound up making 210 with this Shield? So were their 40 Prototyppes possibly made with the Tidioute Shield, Inquiring minds want to know?
I got a feeling that collecting these GEC knives will be as much fun as collecting the CASE CLASSICS was when they were very affordable.
No, GEC will only make 2 protos of each variant and #1 goes into the company collection. I expect they used the remaining blades for the 2007/2006 transition River Valley Green Pioneer. That tang has both dates (they added the 2007). People will throw a fit if you go higher than your etched max production; few complain if you come in under advertised production totals.
It has been brought to my attention that our 2006 production numbers are not correct. I would like to explain the #23 Amber. My records show that we produced the following in numerical order for the #23 Tidioute: 001 - 136 - Diamond Back Amber, 137 - 189 - Bocote Wood, 190 - 199 - Diamond Back Amber, 200 - 205 - Bocote Wood, 206 - 208 - Diamond Back Amber, 209 - 230 - Bocote Wood, 231 - Diamond Back Amber, 232 - 250 Chocolate Jig bone. Hope that helps explain it somewhat.
Thanks Chris, I am glad the Ladies & Gentlemen from Great Eastern are members of this Club, Especially You! You had the records on hand to provide an answer to my question in an exceptionally quick time! :).
I am sure sooner or later other questions will come up about Production Numbers and the relation to a particular number of a knife’s frame. It is great to know that You have records of the different handles and numbers sequence associated with the different Shields. Oh, and I didn’t have a hard time understanding what you were saying.
At this time Counterfeiting is probably not a problem with GEC, however as time goes by and these early issues rise in value, then I would almost bet some enterprising Person will attempt to counterfeit the more valuable issues of your early cutlery. It’s great to know somebody can tell us if the knife is legit or not.
I collected The Case Classics because the Quality of the knives, however the miss information on them was tremendous. Even the Case Classics Book that was published in 1995 had some typos in it. Hopefully when the GEC Book is published for GEC collectors your records will be a little more accurate.
Great Eastern Cutlery will be conducting their annual "Open House" on July 23rd with tours of the factory 8A-2P, July 24th with tours of the factory, 8A-4p and July 25th with tours 8A-4P. Their address is: 701 Spring Street, Titusville, PA. Chris at GEC has provided the following lodging information:
Comfort Inn - Titusville - 814-827-0041
Cross Creek Resort - Titusville - 814-827-9611
Arlington Hotel - Oil City - 814-677-1221
Holiday Inn Express - Cranberry - 814-677-2640
Quality Inn - Franklin - 814-437-3031
Robert I'm sorry it took so long to respond, I've been working on a project and haven't been on here for a few days. Yes they have half stops and have good snap on them.
Scott, Joe Ball here...finally. It was great to meet and chat with you at the Blade show and I am impressed with this whole e-community you have provided. Fantastic work. Also grateful for this space devoted to those like me who love GE knives. Hi Chris!
Interesting family history and all about being from PA. Pretty cool. And you have relatives working for knife companies now too? You do fit right in here.
So you were attracted to GE because of their factory's location? I see you met GE Group's host- Ken, good.
I am amazed at the new congress stag. It is a very elegant design and feels light and very pocketable, one of my new favorites! A very classy addition to the collection.
just got the congress abalone .......................... WOW
i think im still blinded from the shine and dizzy from the unreal 3 D effects.
I could not be more impressed.
Even more classy an addition.
Thanks to Scott King, founder of this site and Lisa, an old NKCA friend I discovered the Great Eastern Knife Co. I have been involved heavily in knife collecting since 1969, but have not been very active for the last four years. Since being made aware of this site I have purchased a Northfield Sunfish, A Northfield moose, and a Northfield whittler all with beautiful burnt stag handles. I also purchased a Bulldog muskrat with burnt stag handles. They are all beautiful knives and among the highest quality knives I have ever seen. Thanks much Scott and Lisa.
Scott.... the ETs are on a different plane of existence... my three GE ETs are still bomb, I agree...even the acrylic which I normally can take or leave.
Richard... I think you are onto something!
Dick, I am glad you like them. The folks behind the company are good folks who care about quality knife making.
And for you other older knife guys/gals here- when Josh (Joe) says "my three GE ETs are still bomb...." translated- it means he likes them :) Josh if I missed your meaning let me know.
Hey Ryan. Glad to see you join your knife company's fan club here! Gotta open house coming up this weekend, eh? Wish I could get there....but I can't. Ken is going and try to get some video so I can edit it and put it up here. Hope you will give him permission to video the factory.
For all of you that are coming to our open house this weekend we will be raffling off a prototype of our newest knife, the toothpick. Tickets will be $2.00 each and the drawing will be held at the end of the open house on Saturday. You need not be present to win, we will ship you the knife and all the money collected (100%) will be donated to the Make A Wish Foundation.
Wanted to let everyone know, Roger and I made it back from Titusville. We had a qreat time at the Great Eastern Cutlery open house. They not only produce GREAT knives, but the folks at GEC are great also, Bill, Ken, Ryan,Chris and Pat are real nice folks. They permitted us to video our tour of the factory, I've sent it to Scott and he's going to post it on here if it turned out.
Hey Scott
I posted pic's of the knives we got. The event knife was a sleeveboard in Abalone with matching key holder. There were 30 available, 10 each day. They were serialized, Roger got #2 and mine was #3. The blade is itched with "Great Eastern Cutlery Annual Knife Rendezous". Got to see the new Toothpick in River Blue Jigged Bone. I hope the video turned out and you can get it on here.
Open House video update: Ken sent me the tape with the video on it. I'm having to learn some new tricks to convert an analog video to digital, so I can then edit it. I won't bore you GE fans with the details, other than to say, I think I found a piece of equipment that will work and just clicked the buy it with "One Click" on Amazon. I hope this one works. Hopefully, when the UPS man comes later this week, I'll be able to update again that this one works, the last thing I bought to do it didn't. So, stay tuned. Don't worry bout me and all these investments, I'll just send the bill to Ryan at GE :)
I got the new equipment in only to find out it ain't the equipment that's the problem, it's the tape (the recording is just too pixilated to work). Sorry folks we all tried. Thanks Ken for giving this a hearty go. I can pull the audio off, but don't figure anyone will want to "listen" to an Open House :)
Mike Latham
I didn't care for that 3Blade either, until I got it in-hand. Something about that expensive little beast...
May 15, 2009
Mike Bryant
May 15, 2009
Mike Latham
Be careful unless you get prototypes of a variant that was never actually made at all; which is the true reason for prototypes (to pick on variant over another for final production). There is a large market for proto's and they are quite easy to counterfeit if the only difference is the etching....
May 15, 2009
Mike Bryant
OK, maybe you hit the numbering sequence on the head 210 made of the 23 pattern in the Tidioute Shield they had 3 digfferent Jigging patterns. Apparrently all the Spay blades were all etched before assembly and GEC had plans to manufacture 250 total knives but only wound up making 210 with this Shield? So were their 40 Prototyppes possibly made with the Tidioute Shield, Inquiring minds want to know?
I got a feeling that collecting these GEC knives will be as much fun as collecting the CASE CLASSICS was when they were very affordable.
May 15, 2009
Mike Latham
May 15, 2009
KnifeMaker
Joan Mae Howard
May 15, 2009
Mike Latham
I think you said 150 Amber, 81 Bocote, and 19 Chocolate; all but the Chocolate with varying number ranges...?
In other words, stop trying to make sense out of 2006 serial numbers...
May 15, 2009
Richard L Campbell (Dick)
May 15, 2009
Mike Bryant
I am sure sooner or later other questions will come up about Production Numbers and the relation to a particular number of a knife’s frame. It is great to know that You have records of the different handles and numbers sequence associated with the different Shields. Oh, and I didn’t have a hard time understanding what you were saying.
At this time Counterfeiting is probably not a problem with GEC, however as time goes by and these early issues rise in value, then I would almost bet some enterprising Person will attempt to counterfeit the more valuable issues of your early cutlery. It’s great to know somebody can tell us if the knife is legit or not.
I collected The Case Classics because the Quality of the knives, however the miss information on them was tremendous. Even the Case Classics Book that was published in 1995 had some typos in it. Hopefully when the GEC Book is published for GEC collectors your records will be a little more accurate.
May 15, 2009
Ken Mundhenk
Comfort Inn - Titusville - 814-827-0041
Cross Creek Resort - Titusville - 814-827-9611
Arlington Hotel - Oil City - 814-677-1221
Holiday Inn Express - Cranberry - 814-677-2640
Quality Inn - Franklin - 814-437-3031
Hope to see you there
May 18, 2009
In Memoriam
Scott King
May 26, 2009
Ken Mundhenk
May 27, 2009
Richard L Campbell (Dick)
May 27, 2009
KnifeMaker
Joan Mae Howard
May 29, 2009
In Memoriam
Scott King
May 29, 2009
KnifeMaker
Joan Mae Howard
May 29, 2009
In Memoriam
Scott King
May 29, 2009
Ken Mundhenk
May 30, 2009
KnifeMaker
Joan Mae Howard
Jun 3, 2009
Ken Mundhenk
Pics of Tortosie Shell Acrylic and River Blue Jigged Bone Congress and GEC 01 Blade KeyJun 3, 2009
Robert Spring
Jun 5, 2009
Ken Mundhenk
Jun 8, 2009
Joe Ball
Jun 16, 2009
In Memoriam
Scott King
So you were attracted to GE because of their factory's location? I see you met GE Group's host- Ken, good.
Jun 19, 2009
Joe Ball
Jun 20, 2009
Joe Ball
Jun 23, 2009
Joe Ball
i think im still blinded from the shine and dizzy from the unreal 3 D effects.
I could not be more impressed.
Even more classy an addition.
Jun 23, 2009
In Memoriam
Scott King
Jun 23, 2009
Richard L Campbell (Dick)
Jun 24, 2009
Joe Ball
Richard... I think you are onto something!
Jun 25, 2009
In Memoriam
Scott King
And for you other older knife guys/gals here- when Josh (Joe) says "my three GE ETs are still bomb...." translated- it means he likes them :) Josh if I missed your meaning let me know.
Jun 25, 2009
Roger Cunningham
Jun 25, 2009
In Memoriam
Scott King
Jun 25, 2009
Roger Cunningham
Jun 25, 2009
Ken Mundhenk
Jun 25, 2009
Joe Ball
Jun 26, 2009
Ken Mundhenk
Pic of Tidioute Barlow, single blade with Exotic Mexican BocoteJun 30, 2009
Ken Mundhenk
Tidioute single blade barlow, standard orange jigged boneJun 30, 2009
Ken Mundhenk
Tidioute barlow, clip and spey blades, standard jigged orange boneJun 30, 2009
Joe Ball
Jul 1, 2009
In Memoriam
Scott King
Jul 17, 2009
Perry Miller
Jul 17, 2009
In Memoriam
Scott King
Jul 21, 2009
Danny Allen
Jul 21, 2009
KnifeMaker
Joan Mae Howard
Jul 22, 2009
Ken Mundhenk
Jul 27, 2009
In Memoriam
Scott King
I'll let you know when the vid comes in (I guess I better get to figuring out how to get it into my Mac!)
Jul 27, 2009
Ken Mundhenk
I posted pic's of the knives we got. The event knife was a sleeveboard in Abalone with matching key holder. There were 30 available, 10 each day. They were serialized, Roger got #2 and mine was #3. The blade is itched with "Great Eastern Cutlery Annual Knife Rendezous". Got to see the new Toothpick in River Blue Jigged Bone. I hope the video turned out and you can get it on here.
Jul 28, 2009
In Memoriam
Scott King
Aug 3, 2009
In Memoriam
Scott King
Aug 10, 2009