Some knives look too good to use, and this 8-1/2-inch full-sized skinner (with a 4-1/4-inch hollow ground high carbon stainless steel gut hook blade) almost crosses the line into the collector's zone. Fortunately, like the other knives Buck makes, it was built for work.
The brass butt and finger guard perfectly complement the laminated polished wood handle of this full tang knife. I have knives with Brazilian rosewood handles that don't look better than this one. (Buck says this is birchwood but I'm skeptical; it looks better than birchwood should). Brass fittings will dent and nick if you use the knife for rough work, but minor flaws will polish out -- and for sheer good looks, brass wins over steel every time.
Skinning knives have always been special purpose blades, ground thin with bold curves. That's been true since the Stone Age, and you can still see the evidence in old camps where the pretty arrowheads and spear points were stolen ages ago, and the crude stone chips and thin flakes that served as butcher's tools still litter the sand. Today skinning knives are more of an art, but they still have to do the work to be any good.
If you look at the gut hook on this knife, you may think it's more style than function, a bit too slender, but C. J. Buck -- fourth in the line of those famous American knife makers -- designed this one. You can expect it to slip through the work without ripping through what's below. But don't try to open cans with it. Have some respect for art.
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