Sometimes Ebay Pays Off

I generally do not like Ebay, as it's not a very knife friendly place. However, once in a while, you find a diamond among the thousands of offerings. In this case, Item #261008813736, a Bob Lum Catalog dated from 1980, when he was still living in Santa Barbara CA., before he moved to Eugene OR. And even more valuable, a price list. This is the period where Bob's lack of record keeping had left a big gap in his knowledge base. The information contained within the catalog has really helped in filling in some of those gaps.

A couple of interesting notes to share:

1) The knife featured on the cover of the catalog was the Chinese Non-Folder, a  Small Utility fixed blade that can be seen here (top picture, second from bottom):  http://100lums.blogspot.com/2009/09/utility-blades.html

Mine is not the one on the cover of the catalog in that mine has a small choil to mark the end of the edge, and for easier resharpening. But it would have cost me a mere $135 if I had bought one back then.

This just confirms that Bob has been making the Chinese Knife design from the very start of his career, and while it's still based on the Shi-Lin Knife, the current versions we know is the end product of many years of evolution.

2) Bob had a model of the Tanto in the catalog, but did not call it a Tanto. His name for it was the Samurai Knife. No price was given unfortunately. But it did lack Bob's signature Hamagiri tip.

3) Bob prefer steel of choice in 1980 was 154CM. And all his fixed blades came with Tapered Tangs.

4) Bob's signature Lum chop is very prominently displayed on the cover. Which means Bob probably had the logo in mind at this time, but it just took him a few years to move away from the LUM stamp to the etched Chop Logo.

Price for the item $7.00.
Shipping, $1.50.
Value of information contained: priceless.