Does anyone have a rainbow cricket?

[Candyman]

I was wondering if any fellow forum members have the rainbow cricket in their collection? Reason I ask is that I’ve only ever actually seen one picture of one of these knives and it’s the old one that was on an old thread and the same one from the angelfire page. I know they were Japan market. Just strikes me as strange that a few more haven’t surfaced for pictures at least.

Rich

[Mini2white]

It's that fabled Unicorn. A light trick on stainless maybe

[The Deacon]

It's that fabled Unicorn. A light trick on stainless maybe

No, not a trick of light, most likely the same process that rainbow "anodized" the Rainbow Spyderfly. I know those exist, because I have one.






I think it's more a combination of two things. One being that the Rainbow Cricket was made before online forums made US buyers who did not have a direct connection to Japan aware of the existence of JDM Spydercos. The other being the fact there don't seem to be many, if any, knife enthusiasts from Japan on this forum.

[spyderwa]

I had the one in the photo from the angelfire site, (my site btw). I purchased this one in 2004 from the G. Sakai factory in Seki City, Japan. They used to have a sale at their old factory and this is one of the items that I picked up. Unfortunately I sold it many years ago. The money that I made helped pay for a fairly expensive trip. Spyderco has good working relations with their factories and allows for Japan only domestic models. This was one of those items. The rainbow finish is obtained by depositing a titanium coating onto the knife and then anodizing the titanium in an electrified bath. From the picture you can see that the front looks better than the back and it appears that the knife was anodized assembled rather than in pieces. My gut feeling is that this process was not consistent at the time and that might have prevented the export of this version. It was a nice knife and if I had realized that I would not be able to find more on my later Japan trips I would have kept it. Hindsight is 20/20.

spyderwa
Rare and Unusual Spyderco Website
www.angelfire.com/trek/spyderwa

[Candyman]

Great information!! Thanks you guys! Exactly what I was looking for.

Rich

[NvalidRgument]

The attachment s-l400.jpg is no longer available

I tried to respond to another post but got disapproved so
if I am approved this time I just wanted to say funny enough I think I was the one who purchased the exact rainbow Cricket. So yes, it's real lol. Here's a couple of pictures I'm happy to post more if desired

[RadioactiveSpyder]

This unicorn is up for sale on eBay - but I’m sure Rich already knows that!

[NvalidRgument]

The attachments weren't showing up on the last message so here's a couple more.

I got 2 Crickets in Japanese boxes several years ago, one was a pink FRN and the other was this one, they both had the model labels scuffed off (possibly there was a price tag or something on that side of the box) so I was never able to determine if Spyderco made an official model number but the packaging looks official otherwise.

There's not much info on the pink FRN model either but I was able to find a model number C29SPN so I'm guessing the pink one I bought also came from the Japanese market but might have also been released in the US at some point.

s-l400 (2).jpg (17.69 KiB) Viewed 625 times

Pink FRN