Custom Justin Gingrich Camillus Beckers

So here is a post I'm so happy to finally get out. It's been a draft that I worked on for a long time as I've been adding to bit by bit while I learned more. It was a fun journey that I'm very excited to share with you.

So it seems there was some custom Camillus Beckers that I have never seen before.

I came across this old serrated Camillus bk2 on Ebay and it sparked some questions.

At first glance all I thought was that it's a Camillus bk2 with some homemade handles, aftermarket sheath, and custom finish. That's not uncommon at all, you see at-home custom Beckers pop on on Ebay all the time. The thing is, the seller claimed it was something else. He claimed it was a "special factory order" customized by Justin Gingrich of Ranger Knives. Also claimed they were from blanks sold at the Camillus closing auction. The seller said they were made out of Camillus "OVB" Becker blanks. This of course dosen't make any since. The Camillus OVB (Our Very Best) line did not feature Beckers. So this confuses me, is it a special factory order? As in, Camillus was still open and they produced this? Or was this from the closing auction?

Something else I found interesting is two other claims by the seller. First he claimed they were all a special order for Smokey Mountain Knife Works (SMKW). Second, this was one of the last projects Camillus was doing trying to save their business. Not saying these are true, but I can get behind these last two claims. SMKW has always been a unique place and orders lots of "exclusives" from different companies. It also makes since that this could be one of the last projects Camillus worked on before they closed down. That would certainly explain why we have absolutely no info or old ads about these.  I did some digging around on SMKW and found nothing, but the Camillus days were a really long time ago so there aren't many good breadcrumbs to follow.

Now here is where I found the first breadcrumb and it gets good.  I only found one place with a small thread of evidence. This place happens to have an extremely close proximity to SMKW (only a few hundred yards actually), Buds Gun Shop. Thank God they have the most outdated website around and have never updated anything! Here we strike gold. I found two old listings for "CMBKJG" (thats CaMillus BecKer Justin Gingrich). I found a bk2 and a bk9. This bk2 was non-serrated. They were listed under "Live TV Exclusives"....what? Sounds like something for one of those QVC cable channels? I don't even know what to think about that.

It's very interesting that the micarta handles cover up the extended pommel on the bk9.

Links to these are HERE and HERE.

Something else to add if you Google around at some Ranger knives during that time, sheaths just like the one on the bk9 above were used.

So as you can see the coating on the bk2s are extremely textured and web-like. Where as the coating on the bk9 is a grey color and more smooth. The coating on the bk2s literally looks like it's powder coated over the existing coating. The logos are basically gone because of this.  While the silver/grey bk9 coating is very fine and really dosen't appear to be double layered, you can also still make out the logo clearly.

Here is where it gets better with the second breadcrumb. If you're crazy enough to sort through hundreds and hundreds, hours and hours of pages of old Camillus Becker Ebay listing from Worth Point, yes I'm that crazy, you find these.

So here we have what looks to be a Gingrich custom Camillus bk3. Same handles, same sheath (in a new color), and a new coating.

Here is a bk9 Just like the one from the Buds Gun Shop listing. Same silver/grey coating, sheath, and handles. 

In both the Ebay listings above that I found in Worth Point: neither seller claimed these were Gingrich customs, just customizations.

I recently got lucky and found myself one of these Gingrich bk9s and it is beautiful! Like the ones from Worth Point the seller and listing had no mention that this was customized by Justin Gingrich.

It might be important to note that on my Gingrich bk9 above, it does not have the clip/swedge just like the early Camillus bk9s. The stock photo from the Buds Gun Shop page definitely shows one with the clip. I really can't tell if the one from the Worth Point photo has it or not. However, it makes me think, was it meant to not have the clip? I know tons of people think the bk9 should not have the clip and the Camillus bk9s without the clips do sell for some high prices. If these were a special factory order meant to be an upgraded version of the bk9 could one of those upgrades be the subtraction of the clip point?


Another thing to throw out there is that they are numbered on the inside.

This bk9 has the number 12 on both the L and R handle and on the blade.

The bk2sg has the number 52 on both the L and R handle and on the blade.

So summing up:

So far we know there was a bk2, bk2sg, bk3, and bk9. I wouldn't be shocked at all if a Gingrich bk7 shows up. Who knows how many of the other Becker models this customization was done to. It seems the idea behind it was to put upgraded handles on them, upgraded sheath, and I guess an upgraded coating on them and sell them as custom Beckers that look like Ranger knives?

I don't know if these were sold buy Camillus, or if Justin just bought a bunch of Beckers on his own and customized them. Or maybe Justin bought a bunch of Becker blanks at the Camillus closing auction? Tons of theories possible, but I'm thinking this is not done by Camillus or we would have some old info on it.

***UPDATED***
2/22/19

So I did the smart thing and emailed Justin Gingrich himself to ask about these. So now we have a definitive answer. 

Justin said he did these for SMKW. Ive talked about this on other posts here on the blog, SMKW bought up TONS of stuff at the Camillus closing auction (see my CAM1A1 post HERE). So SMKW bought a bunch of heat treated and non-heat treated Becker blades from the auction and hired Justin Gingrich to finish them so they could sell them. He said he had to do handles, powder coating, and heat treat some. 

If the blank was already heat treated it probably had the coating on it, so that makes the double powder coated bk2s above make since.

So if Camillius went under in 2007, these Gingrich customs were probably made right after that. 

So there we go, that puts together all the mixed up pieces from the story above. So these were not produced by Camillus, or something Justin did on his own. Also dosen't surprise me that Buds Gun Shop got some of these, after all they are next door neighbors with SMKW.

***ANOTHER UPDATE***

Look what I just found on the SMKW website. Link HERE.

Also found an old sale thread on BF from 2013 with a Gingrich bk2. Link HERE.