Warren Osborne Police Folder
Warren Osborne is one of the great legends of knifemaking, his designs forever permeating the lives of custom and production knife collectors with his extensive number of collaborations with Benchmade. I’ve collected his Benchmade pieces for quite a while, and have just had the opportunity to pick up one of his custom pieces.
The Police folder shares the typical Warren Osborne styling cues with his soft flowing lines, thin handle profile and reverse tanto blade shape. Originally purchased by a collector in 2002 from the Colorado Custom Knife Gallery, the knife has now made its way to my hands.
The knife shares the identical shape as the Benchmade 923 Switchback which Warren created along with the production team at Benchmade. The custom police folder does have two major differences however: No rear slipjoint blade, and Top Lock instead of Axis Lock.
This Police folder from Warren Osborne features brushed titanium bolsters and semi-polished Green and Black G-10 Scales. The construction interestingly is mostly pinned and now screwed together. This is Warren’s style, as he likes to keep things as smooth as possible, and is a very nice feature especially with his high-end interframe folders.
The top lock locks up great, and resembles a Spyderco Compression lock, except on the other side of the knife. Warren starting using this lock before Spyderco did.
The blade on this one is ATS-34, and bead blasted. Nicely ground with a very keen edge and super slim blade profile. It feels good in the hand and I really like how the knife is so thin, it almost disappears in the pocket.
Specs:
Blade Length: 3 1/4″
Overall Length: 7 3/4″
Blade Steel: ATS-34
Handle Material: G-10
Bolster Material: Titanium
November 27th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Nice blade. All the Osborne’s I’ve seen recently on dealer sites are more fancy art knives. You mentioned the term “interframe”, does that mean the knife doesn’t have separate liners and scales? I did a search but wasn’t able to get a clear answer. Thanks for the great knife reviews.
June 24th, 2011 at 7:16 pm
Wow, that is a fantastic looking knife. How much did you get it for?
June 24th, 2011 at 8:39 pm
I got it in a trade, but I have since sold it. I believe I sold it for $700, if that helps.
May 4th, 2020 at 6:12 am
I was wondering about the ATS-34 blade steel… Per info I had about this Police model – Warren used CPM 154 on that knife (or maybe on some knives he made late 1990s???). Trying to find out if this is correct. Warren had the most revolutionary approach to knifemaking, he was the first one to try using CPM M4 blade steel and would test try many different approaches and methodologies into his knifemaking. Was beloved by many. RIP.