Noveske Strider Knife
Long story, and I've written it out before, so you have my apologies if you have heard this already. John Noveske was making a custom run of blades with Strider. John wanted to make the blade based off his version of what his personal knife would be. Strider made a couple prototypes (no serial numbers) and sent them to John. It wasn't totally what John was looking for, and he was going to spec out a few changes before they did a production run.
I stayed at Johns house for a couple weeks taking vacation from the PD. While I was there, John took the knife that he kept for himself, and gave it to me. John and I gave stuff to each other back and forth, it all started when he liked a jacket I was wearing when I first met him at a huge bonfire / BBQ party. He tried it on and it fit him perfect, we are both tall with long arms and the Otte Gear soft shell looked tailor fit on him. When I left the bonfire I went out to my buddies truck to leave, then went back and interrupted John talking to a bunch of dudes and tossed the jacket to him and told him keep it. Then I walked away before he could try to say no. If you ever wonder why John is often pictured in Otte Gear jackets, it started when I gave him the one off my back.
Another time we were on his jet boat on the Rogue River, and he saw the back of my Eotech shirt had a outline of a certain MFG that wasn't him, so he told me I was gay and to throw the shirt away. Off it came and it went into the river. I went home that trip with a stockpile of Noveske shirts. People who know John all saw different sides of him. The sides I saw of him were probably unique in that I saw the business side, the family side, and the friend side. I am worse off for his passing, and I miss him. However, he was the type of guy who still makes me laugh and smile on a regular basis.
Back to the knife, the production version ended up being very similar to this, I think the main difference is they are serial numbered and the G10 grips are different. I believe two of these went to his sons, a third went to a friend of his at the shop, and this one was his. If you read all this, thanks for your time. Hopefully it helps shed a little light on how good of a guy he was.
I really wish that the "actual" knife that he wanted to design made it to production, but congratulations to the people who own them, and I hope you enjoy...
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