Today, I managed to get my hands on a Standard ATS-55 ((SE)) beauty. I try to make a weekly visit to my local store and talk knives with the owner. We started rambling on about "old school" Spyderco blades and he said "wait a minute let me check something." I didn't know what was going on, but he went into the back and made a phone call. Not but five minutes later, one of his employees coming into the store from the warehouse with a little red box :eek: I knew it was a Spyderco, but I had no idea what model. I proceeded to open it and look upon a brand new Standard :D Apparently, it had been lost in the gentleman's inventory since 1998!! It has a G-10 handle and is a heavy little knife. It reminds me of my manix :) Anyways, I figured I would share my story of the day with my fellow Spyderhollics :)
-Jeffrey-
Edit: had to update because the knife just bit me!
Standard SE
I got one (SE) a week ago. C05GS. The box has been bounced around some but it looks like the knife has never seen daylight. The factory oil was solidified everywhere but had done its job of keeping rust away on the sea voyage and all that time in solitary confinement. Besides the solidified oil I could see some issues that I didn't like in two places on the cam of the blade. These looked like casting holes and they would have likely caused scratching and roughness between the cam and lockbar over time. So I took the blade and the lock bar and the spring out to clean everything up. The pockmarks were pretty deep. About an hour with the Profiles had things looking much better. I also took the time to slightly bend the spring because it required too much force to compress the bar. All good now. Still haven't carried it.