Hi all. This is my first post on the forum. I recently aquired a 2002 Probe on ebay. I thought I'd reach out to those who have the large Probe or are at least familiar with it. The probe I received was listed as New, and except for some minor handling marks, could qualify. My problem is that in addition to a little lock rock when open (very minor), the blade when closed rattles around side to side quite a bit. There is pretty much just enough tension in the closed position for the blade to remain closed in the scales, and the scales are slightly too wide or the blade too thin (tolerance issue). My 2003 Mini-Probe does not have this problem and uses a similar locking system but closes super-tight, so I don't know if this is normal for the large probe. One thing I noticed, was that due to the length of this beast, one can flick the blade open by holding it at the opposite end. Could this 'abuse' have caused the problem over time by handlers? Or was QC just not the same back then and/or for this limited run model?
On another note, I also contacted Spyderco Tech Support and spoke to Susan about the presence of a rubber lanyard originally on this knife (my Mini-Probe has one in yellow), and said she was working at Spyderco at the time in the 80s and only remembers the Mini-Probe coming with it, although they both have eyelets on the scale near the blade. I have researched many images online, and the "Unofficial Spyderco Source" site has two photos of the Mini-Probe and none of the actual Probe (5" scale on Mini vs 6" scale on Full-size). NO other photos or even Sal's reply on an old thread conclusively state that BOTH probes came with the lanyard (there is a tendancy for folks to often mix them up or use their names indescrimanently). Sal had told the person there should be a rubber lanyard with the knife, but the other party in the conversation didn't specify exactly which he had, or Sal didn't ask for clarification on which.
Can anybody shed some light on these two issues? Much appreciated if you can!