There are basically two different strategies for the construction of a knife: Full tang or hidden tang (half tang). I sometimes find that especially American customers tend to be somewhat apprehensive about the solidity of the hidden tang knife. Well, my position in this matter is this: Any knife can be demolished if exposed to blunt violence, but for all practical purposes the hidden tang knife is as solid and usable as the full tang one.

Some knives represent models: Special designs which have proved particularly usable and/or popular. Some of them  are Unica, signifying that they are individual creations never to be repeated, maybe because they are  meant to be singular, because they are made according to the particular customer's own sketch, or simply because the blade has been designed to fit a special, unique, and thus irreproducible piece of handle material, such as the first one I will show you:

Unica Big Hunting Knife: Tasunka Witko (or"Crazy Horse") Sterling Silver/Walrus Tusk

Model Mila 120 *: Sterling Silver/Walrus Tusk/Desert Ironwood (* Mila= Knife in Lakota Language)

Unica:  Sterling Silver/Musk Ox Horn/Walrus Tusk (Now in Wyoming)

Unica: Sterling Silver/Walrus Tusk

Model Washakie: Brass/Elm Root (Now in New Zealand)

Skinner Model Pawnee: Sterling Silver/Masur-birch

 

Model Mila  115: Sterling Silver/Desert Ironwood/Musk Ox Horn (Now in Michigan)

 

Small Skinner Unica: Sterling Silver/Musk Ox Horn Tip (Now in Michigan)

 

Model Kutenai II: Brass/Masur Birch (Now in Greenland)

Angling Knife Model Salish: Sterling Silver/Walrus Tusk and African Buffalo Horn (resp.) (Now in Illinois)

Model Nuka: Sterling Silver/Baltic Amber (Now in Michigan)

 

Unique  (Customer's own Design): Sterl. Silver/Musk Ox Horn (Now in Ohio)