Knife on contemporary site

[Don Getz]

There is a knife shown on the "contemporarymakers blogspot", with the question "who was MS?"    I have a great custom hunting knife done by Joe Keesler of Almo, Ky.   He has his name on the blade on one side, and has a stamped
"MS" on the other side.......it stands for "Master Smith", or Bladesmith.   Strange that the knife shown doesn't have the
makers name on it.............Don

[C Wallingford]

Don--
I think there is a mark on the opposite side but I can't make it out. You are correct, the MS is for Master Smith. The stamp is given to all Master Bladesmiths by the ABS

[Randy Hedden]

By blowing the picture of the knife up by 10-20 times, what looks like a maker's mark on the other side of the rifle shows up to be just a forging mark.  Seems to me like if the maker was a "Master Smith" he would have stamped the blade with his touch mark.  So now I am thinking that the MS is actually the maker's mark and does not stand for Master Smith.

Randy Hedden

[Don Getz]

Randy....I'm tempted to agree with you.  Personally, I was not that much impressed with the knife, sure didn't look like
one done by a "Master Smith", and like you, or Charlie, said, usually if you work to get that title, you are proud to put
your name on it.........Don