Here we have a really nice custom skinner knife by knifemaker, Don Parrish.
This knife was purchased in 2001 from Don through the Internet.
The strangest thing is that shortly after, Don and every presence of him just
"disappeared!" For alomost five years, I was in a vain attempt to locate him as
I was interested in having another knife made. Many people knew his name -
Nobody knew where he was!
Suddenly, in 2005, he just popped back up on Bladeforums.com with knives
for sale and everything else. I am glad he's back because the quality of
his knives are really superb. The fit is real tight and the finish and the finish is
wonderful - not perfect to the trained eye - but really, really good.
The balance on this skinner is in my spot of choice for a skinning knife -
slightly behind the thumb guard in the center of the groove you see in the
closeup handle shot above. This makes for real easy handling while moving
the knife up and down to get around bone as you cut along - perfect as far as
skinners are concerned. The shape of the blade makes it easy to lift and pull
and the width lets you keep the knife right between the skin and muscle.