An Uncle Henry Surprise!

[Darksev]

Greetings all,
For my Birthday this year, I decided to get myself a few presents and fully embrace an idea I've had for a while to build a display collection based on one of my all time favorite patterns, the 881/8OT

I've had the bog standard 8OT, and a couple of the 505 Scrimshaw versions and a few other editions, but I felt like I needed a few more… interesting versions to add to the mix. Which leads me to what showed up in the mail this week.

Initially, I was looking for a good “example” piece for the 885UH. I have one I occasionally carry, but I wanted a “pristine” model for the display (not hard to come by). It was going great until I found one listed as “used, scratched” with this stamp on it (the one on the left):

Well, that's interesting. I thought that stamp went away in mid 1973… but, I'm pretty sure there were a few UH's that came out in '72 and the back of the blade looked like it had an 885 on it, so it's possible and all. I figured it would be cool to have an "old stamp" version AND a "new stamp" version in the display. Well, when it showed up it was a little more than I was expecting, I think I might have won the old Uncle Henry Lotto inadvertently on the cheap!

The scratches turned out to be some fine sharpening lines from some freehand sharpening (by someone who knew how to sharpen, I can vouch for the edge), but the secondary blades are untouched. There is an "885" stamped on the rear of the main blade, along with "Stainless" stamped on the secondary blades. extra bonus's include Coined/Milled nickel liners, a really long pull on the main blade (again, the knife on the left)

I figured I'd share my latest find with people who would appreciate it Like most things Schrade, you never know what you'll uncover.

[orvet]

That is a real bonus Adam!
It even has milled liners! I thought you were going to say it has bone handles as well!
An excellent example of an early Uncle Henry.

I really need to do an update to the Schrade lists as I have found a number of mistakes in the original lists.
I have discovered since posting the lists in the Schrade Research Section that the first listing of the 885UH was actually 1970.
Indeed I was just rechecking that info and found an October 1969 Distributor's price list that lists the 885UH with a Distributors cost $4.50. The 1970 MSRP was $12.
Of course it was Schrade Walden/Imperial's practice to hand out the coming years catalogs and pricelists at the October or November annual sales meeting. The knife may not have been in production in 1969 when the pricelist was made, but they knew how much they would charge for them then

[tongueriver]

I sent a pm to Darksev, but I know that AAPK does not notify me when I get one, so I look to see if I have one about once every two months when I think of it. What I wanted to say, among other things, is that 885UH he posted might have a very low serial # stamped inside the knife on the liner.

[Darksev]

I'll check it when I get home from work today and let you know Were the serial numbers sequential?

[Darksev]

And the magic number is: 30341

I gotta be honest, I like a knife with a good snap, but the backsprings on this beauty are real killers lol. Never seen a swinden knife with that kinda spring