gga357 -- This has brought to the surface many names that I have never heard of, thanks to everyone for their opinions. Now I have quite a list of makers to learn about.
The problem is that the majority of the people listed are either completely retired or in most cases dead so our $70 Loveless Hunter is now worth $5.500, the $40 Scagle is $3,200, the $75 Randall is $1,800 and on and on like that...
Although who made Bowie's famous knife has been in dispute, we know that Rezin did make knives for him...whether it was the famous Sandbar knife with a piece of a meteor in it is up to debate...Now, his name is synonymous with a style or maybe a whole class of knives even though we have no idea what his knife actually looked like but not discounting the Mexican officer's found knife as proof of ownership is debatable...Look at
Randall and they have a number of Bowies including the one they made for the movie
"The Iron Mistress."
Now the new trend is towards multi purpose, do everything "Survival" knives and of course the infamous "Tactical" knife which in both cases is just marketing hype but soon a whole new class(es) will be recognized, alas!
Another style and one of the most recognizable knives ever, the famous Gurkha Kukhri...
One name that I forgot and of a fellow Canadian, is that of D. H. Russell whose knife design, the much copied Canadian Belt knife was made by
Rudolph Grohmann and has been on display in the New York Museum of Modern Art gallery since just after it was made in the 1950s...