In the original thread, I brought up the mottling of the leather of the 1-8 sheath that is so typical of many Johnson's, but not so much Heiser. In fact, being sourced from different suppliers, the Heiser mottling is much less apparent over the course of their run not only in numbers but in "severity". I didn't even go to file photos for Johnson examples, I just went to ebay and I think I found these on the first page. I didn't even have to try. So the argument made by the other camp in the original thread doesn't really hold water.

I want to quote a snippet from what I wrote for the RKS newsletter in 2003:

"One final consideration is the difference in the leather used by Heiser and Johnson. Most Heiser leather tends to have a higher luster like shoe leather and tends to be less supple whereas the Johnson leather is not quite as “fine” of finish and tends to be supple."

So this is not something I recently pulled out of my rear end.

The 1-8 first followed by the random picks.