Our first serious collector's knife for the German market. A first test, so to speak. We wanted to include everything that would make the knife desirable, besides the Damascus blade. This included a limited production run of 300 pieces. Choosing the model was easy. For cost reasons, the knife could only have one blade, and it also had to be lockable. I had learned this in the USA, and above all, I saw it as the future for Böker. At that time, the multi-blade pocket knife was already the domain of the two Swiss manufacturers, Victorinox and Wenger. Challenging their market position in this area was, in my opinion, tantamount to suicide. So we resolved to outmaneuver the two Swiss companies with our product strategy. Back then, Böker only had one lockable knife: the single-blade version from our traditional hunting knife series, which we also produced with a saw, a gutting blade, and with or without a corkscrew. Today, we only produce complete knives – blade, saw, gutting blade, and corkscrew – all with staghorn scales. The next crucial decision: What handle material? Staghorn and mother-of-pearl were already routine for us back then. I remember it vividly: the departments responsible for blade production could hardly wait to stamp, harden, grind, brush, polish, and "draw" the first blades from Damascus steel. This is the term for the acid treatment of the finished blade to reveal the Damascus pattern of the 300 layers. They were truly eager to learn new techniques and could hardly wait for the first delivery of about 30 Damascus steel liners from Manfred Sachse. The other employees in handle preparation, assembly, and finishing didn't want to be left out; they also wanted to be challenged. So, the answer was ivory scales from the Odenwald region, still legal at the time, neatly shaped and riveted to the brass tangs. Our Damascus steel expert, Müller, was doubly challenged. First, he had to extract the nitrous oxide from the finished blade with nitric acid, and then, using an ancient etching technique, he applied a traditional engraving of a blacksmith's scene from 1690 onto the ivory. The learning curves in the various stages of making this knife—approximately 120 steps, not including the Damascus steel forging—only increased very gradually. We probably made each of these 300 knives twice. Incidentally, they cost 320 DM in the shop. Finding one of these knives today must be incredibly difficult. But everything has its price. I'd be interested to know what the value of the 1980 Böker Damascus annual knife has reached today.
