Phony?

[marduk]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/261866167304?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

I saw this on ebay & I felt something was wrong.

1. A series of knives were issued in 1997 to commemorate the 100 anniversary of the Officers Knife, the prototype of the modern Spartan. Why did Vic issue this knife, an Explorer?

2. The original series, if I remember correctly, was made up of only 2 knives, the Spartan & Vics' premier model, the Swiss Champ. I believe Vic issued a release several years ago detailing all its special editions, & the release mentioned 2 for this series, the Spartan & Swiss Champ.

3. The 2 models mentioned in the release have print screen images in red on the main blade. This knife does not.

Is it a mod of somekind?

[SAK Guy]

Scales are the same (front and back) as my Swiss Champ...the serial number (on mine) is on the liner under the corkscrew. Mine has the marked blade but it's coming off so may not be very durable.

[Reinier]

Scale swap?

I had the opposite: 100yr blade on an XXLT, a bit strange:

[jazzbass]

Anything is possible, but... my money is on scale swap. My gut says that someone took the scales off of a 1997 commemorative Spartan, stuck them on an Explorer from c. 1991, and dumped it on eBay as "rare". Looks like they made quite a bit on money doing so.

[marduk]

Anything is possible, but... my money is on scale swap. My gut says that someone took the scales off of a 1997 commemorative Spartan, stuck them on an Explorer from c. 1991, and dumped it on eBay as "rare". Looks like they made quite a bit on money doing so.

That was my first impression.

[AlephZero]

In my opinion, whenever an ebay listing has "rare vintage" in it, beware!