I have to agree 100% with David. That is NOT the knife recovered from Liberty Bell. I was able to look at the actual knife recovered from the capsule when the exhibit stopped in Denver. In fact I made it a point to get there one morning just to be able to see the knife alone without the distraction of other people around.

While the knife dug out of the muck at the bottom of the capsule looked well preserved, the knife in the pictures shown in this thread is pristine. Additionally no leather sheath was present in the exhibit nor mentioned anywhere. The linked pictures aren't great but do represent the knife that I saw.

Liberty Bell 7 knife

Jon

Another point, Jon, is that in all the restored photos, the lanyard is attached, yet in the Indiana knife, it is not, nor is that wrap thing around the handle that attached it to the kit. Seems like they would not have altered that in that way to put it on display.

Doing some more research, I read that the LB7 knife is on display at the Smithsonian? Obviously it can't be in 2 places. I'm starting to think the Indiana knife is one of Grissom's other knives that he owned.

This makes sense, afterall, the Indiana knife description only says, "Grissom's survival knife, made by Bo Randall". It says nothing about it being on the LB7 flight. Still pretty neat and worth a trip to Mitchell.

David, Ronnie, and Chris, Thanks for the other information. And yes they had guts knowing that they were sitting on a rocket that could blow up at any time or they could be doomed to a eternal orbit. You know if you look at the pictures the knife is on the side that the shop puts the etching on so they probably are showing one of his personal knives.oldguy

Okay Papa, next up, Francis Gary Powers' Model 8. This one will take a little more effort to visit since the knife is on display in a Russian museum.



"Powers had insisted he had simply wandered off course and crossed into the Soviet Union unintentionally. But he had been shot down over Sverdlovsk, more than 1,300 miles inside the border, and his captors had recovered a wealth of incriminating evidence from his person and the wreckage of his aircraft: detailed flight maps, a Department of Defense/ Department of the Air Force ID card, Russian rubles, gold francs, a hunting knife, a silenced .22 pistol, and a seemingly innocuous pin found in the prisoner's pocket. Powers warned his captors to handle that last item with extreme caution."

Full story here: http://area51specialprojects.com/u2_mayday.html

Alright, I'll get on this:) Anyone got the phone number to the museum....

Here's another "duplicate" Astro on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum:



http://nasm.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?id=A19620001000

I just got around to reading the BladeForums thread and the OP states that many of the new pieces are on loan from the Smithsonian. Wonder if the Indiana knife is on loan or permanent? I better get down there soon.

Ok guys I got the scoop. I just got off the phone talking to Meredith Miller, the collections manager at the Kansas Cosmoshere and Science Center located near Wichita, KS. She was outstanding to talk to and very helpful. The knife pictured is not from the Liberty Bell, as has been stated here by several people. The knife pictured is located at the museum mentioned in the first post. It is another knife that belonged to Gus. The original 17 has been restored and is on display in the Rotunda of the Cosmoshere Museum. I really would like to see that bit of history and look forward to working that trip in one day. At any rate hope this helps and if any of you live near the Kansas Cosmoshere I encourage you to contact Meredith Miller who was so kind she offered a private up close viewing of the knife and capsule. I would call that first class service.

I just received an email from Meredith Miller of the Kansas Cosmoshere. She sent photos of the Liberty Bell Randall. Clearly pitted but still would look good in my collection. I did notice something I did not notice on the 17 at the Randall Museum. That is the trade mark spells out Florida completely....not abbreviated. As Johnny Carson would say...."I did not know that."
If I can get one of my staff people to get it from my email to this site I will post the photos.