Mel Pardue Designed Knives Part I

Mel Pardue Designed Knives Part I

I am a big knife collector and have several production, custom and a few pre-production and prototype knives. Mel Pardue was one of my favorite designers. I have daily carried a Mel Pardue designed Benchmade 720(#234/1000 First Production Run of the axis lock) knife for almost 23 years. I finally retired it Saturday for a Mike Vellekamp VNives Olmpian.

Mel Pardue passed away last January at age 81.

This is a prototype Benchmade Rant designed by Mel Pardue. I asked my friend Mike who was good friends with him to send them to Mel and Mel autographed the knife(with engraver) for me in 2014. At the time, he was about 73 years old and still had a steady hand.

At that time Mike owned Fox Knives USA, which is where he shipped this from. I covered Mel's home address for obvious reasons.
Mel wrote a little note to Mike, so I have Mel's autograph as well!

MEL PARDUE
"Mel Pardue made his first knife in 1952 and regularly created new designs since 1956. While he produced custom knives throughout his career, he is perhaps most widely known for his work in 24 years collaborating with Benchmade, which produced a number of his designs."

"Among the most popular and recognizable from this partnership was the Griptilian, an EDC folder that became a prolific part of the Oregon company’s catalog. The manual folding knife with the AXIS® lock eventually became available in nearly every conceivable size and color."