A.G. Russell Knives

The Gent's Hunter is a knife that we first introduced in 1989. Over the years the basic design has been produced in three different variations. That first version was handmade with a 440C blade. The second version was also handmade, but with an ATS-34 blade. Both were marked simply A. G. Russell™.

We introduced the A.G. Russell™ Shopmade® California Bowie in February of 2010, with Desert Ironwood scales. At that time we could not find India Stag large enough for these large handle scales. We have finally managed to locate 25 pair of high enough quality to add to this fine knife.

To design this knife, I sat down and tried to put myself in Bill Scagel's place in 1917. America had just entered the European War, the War to End All Wars, the World War, which was 25 years later called World War I.

I designed our California Bowie as a tribute to Ed Henry. Ed was a close friend of mine in those early years of this adventure called the knife industry. In my opinion, Ed's finest knives were his early "English" style Bowies.

We have made the A.G. Russell Shopmade push dagger letter openers with both giraffe bone and deep, dark, ebony wood handle scales. Even though both of these materials are beautiful and much appreciated by knife buyers, these knives provide a perfect opportunity to showcase beautiful interior fossilized mammoth ivory.

The A.G. Russell™ California Bowie is a tribute to Ed Henry and his wonderful knives. In my opinion, Ed's finest knives were his early "English" style Bowies. The guards were so well fitted you could not tell if the knives were machined in one piece or if you were looking at the world's finest solder job. We have tried to accomplish that same fit.

Because the grain pattern is small, Leopardwood is perfect for the A. G. Russell™ Dogleg Trapper. This beautiful handle material is very limited and is being applied here in our own shop.

The way we are handling the A. G. Russell™ San Mai Drop Point Hunter reminds me of the Morseth® knives we made during the 1990s. There were only about ten models, but the variation in handle materials allowed us to create a wide variety of knives.

I designed the A. G. Russell™ San Mai Drop Point Hunter to allow a wide variety different handle materials in very small quantities which we add here in our shop.

Development of the A. G. Russell™ Dogleg Trapper took a long time. A couple of years ago one of the finest makers in Seki, Japan, who has been making A. G. Russell knives for some time, came to us with a handmade prototype of a Dogleg Trapper. He was interested in moving the quality of his knife production to a level beyond what he had been producing. I asked if he could repeatedly produce the quality of workmanship that I saw in that sample. He assured me that he could. The knife was exquisite and the design was so close to what I might have designed that we decided to work with it to develop a VERY top quality A. G. Russell™ folder.

Ed Henry and I were friends for many years, until a writer quoted me as saying that someday Bob Dozier would be as fine a maker as Ed. Ed shot me a note saying simply "NOT in 10,000,000,000,000 years" and signed D. E. Henry instead of his usual "Ed". Ed's bruised ego and hard feelings in no way changed my opinion of the quality of his work.

A uniquely American development, push daggers first appeared on the early riverboats and in the gold fields of California and Nevada. The period right after the Civil War saw new development in cartridge pistols making them more reliable and much less likely to misfire, which seems to have contributed to the decline in popularity of this type of knife.

While there are many different handle materials available, we have chosen three different ones (Ebony, Giraffe Bone and Red Ivory), each with mosaic pins of stainless and copper to complement the color of the handle scales. The ebony is an exotic wood from Mozambique, the pink ivory is a dense wood from South Africa with a naturally occurring pink color and the Giraffe Bone is in its natural color. It has been stabilized but not dyed.

Our Shopmade® program makes maximum use of our assets. Our knowledge of who can do the best job of waterjet cutting, heat treat, wire electro-discharge machining, and rough grind all allows the greatest productivity from our rarest asset, the time of our expert knifemaker(s).

The term San Mai comes from Japan and simply means "three layers". The San Mai steels that began appearing in the American knife market the past few years have all come from Japan. Laminated steels, such as San Mai, were developed to allow a very hard center core for the best cutting and edge holding and a blade that is tough enough to not snap under normal pressure. The soft sides support the hard core and add strength.

Push Daggers appear to be a uniquely American development, first appearing on the early riverboats and in the gold fields of California and Nevada. Gamblers favored them because they could be as swift across a poker or faro table as a percussion pistol without the possibility of a mis-fire.