Schrade Bone vs Delrin

[Sharpnshinyknives]

I have not collected many Schrade over the years. But I have been noticing that when a Schrade bone handled knife comes up for auction it cost considerably more than a delrin. Seems like most of the knives I see for Schrade are delrin handled. Does anyone know how many bone handled Schrades were made versus the delrin handled ones? And why did they make so many in delrin?
I am speaking of the USA made Schrade not the ones made in China.
Mark

[KnifeSlinger#81]

Bone was standard on schrades until around the early 1960's then delrin took over for various reasons. After that point the only bone handled schrades were special editions.

The pre delrin and pre swinden assembly (which coincide at the same time) schrades were different knives than the standard fare old timers and such that are still common. The old ones are more scarce, more collectible and just better, nicer knives. They don't always cost more, it can really fluctuate.

[Sharpnshinyknives]

Paul, Interesting. I see delrin on most of the old Remington’s and Camillus knives too. It must have been very popular, or a better profit margin for the manufacturers. It would be interesting to hear some figures on how many bone versus delrin on all these knives. Would you say that 80 to 90% of Schrade was delrin? Or is that figure too high?
Mark

[jerryd6818]

Mark, I don't think you'll ever get those figures you're looking for. That just wasn't something that was important to the knife makers so no reason to keep track of it. As far as bone vs Delrin® as a handle material, bone is more expensive to buy and it adds more steps to the manufacturing process which of course adds cost.
Buying the bone.
Coloring the bone.
Jigging the bone.
Cutting the bone to size.
Hafting the bone.
There may be more that I am unaware of.

Delrin® and other synthetics on the other hand are simple.
Mix the batter.
Inject it into a mold.
It's molded to size so just mount it.

It's always about the money.

[orvet]

I agree with Jerry, knife companies were about making money they were not about keeping records. Nowadays when a lot of knives are made for the collector market I would hope they are keeping better records, but who knows. The numbering systems used nowadays make it easier to determine the date a knife is made and with the invention of the Internet it’s much easier to share data about the patterns, dates and general information and history about the knives.

Remington got out of the knife business circa 1940, long before Delrin was invented, so most of the old Remingtons have bone or other natural material handles, with of course the exception of the ever-present celluloid. Camillus, Schrade Cut Co and Schrade Walden were in the business of making quality tools not making collectibles; they used the most durable materials they could find were reasonable prices. When Delrin came on the market circa 1960 it offered an inexpensive, dimensionally stable (doesn’t shrink or swell), easily molded and easily colored alternative to bone. In addition to that it was virtually indestructible. Look through your collections at all the Delrin knives you have and see how many of them have broken handles. I would be surprised if anyone had more than 1% or 2% of their Delrin knives that have a handle failure due to a problem with the Delrin, unless they are a knife mechanic like me and by buy parts knives.
I have hundreds of parts knives and if I went through all of the Delrin handles in them I probably couldn’t find 25 knives that had handle failure from legitimate knife use (excluding abuse of course).

So Delrin did offer the manufacturer will a cheaper alternative to bone allowing them to keep the price on their products down and providing a better functioning tool. If you consider a pocket knife to be a tool like a screwdriver or a wrench, one that you use to accomplish specific tasks on a daily basis, would you rather have pretty bone handled screwdrivers and wrenches are would you rather have a more durable plastic or metal handle? The bone may look nice and feel good in the hand but the Delrin will outlast the bone handle in most cases, probably 4 to 1, or more.

The simple answer is after Delrin became available circa 1960 most of the companies went to Delrin for the simple fact that it was cheaper, it was more durable, they didn’t have to worry about the handles breaking and I am sure most of the customers were pleased to be able to buy a knife for less money.

[Mumbleypeg]

I agree with everything Dale said. From a practical, cost effective standpoint Delrin is possibly the best handle material ever. It's inexpensive, durable and manufacturing process friendly. But it's introduction as a material for knife covers was soon followed by the advent of knife collecting popularity, and that introduced a new dynamic to the knife market.

Case introduced Delrin into their product line after others like Schrade had already done so. Case converted many patterns from jigged bone to jigged Delrin. But an interesting thing was happening about that same time, which was Case's burgeoning popularity with collectors. And as it turns out, those collectors didn't particularly like Delrin. On some patterns Case had converted them completely to Delrin, other patterns apparently alternated production between bone and Delrin. Collectors began seeking out the discontinued bone knives. We still see that happening today regardless of brand.

Unfortunately those companies like Schrade, Ulster, Western and others that dropped bone and other natural materials in favor of Delrin compositions that imitated jigged bone, saw cut bone, and even stag, eventually struggled and fell. Case became attuned to the new markets driven by collectors quickly enough to capitalize on it. They pretty much dropped Delrin and went back to natural materials because they heard their customers saying that's what they wanted.

Interestingly Case still produces their "working man's" line with Delrin covers, which is a testimony that it was the right material, but at the wrong time, says 20-20 hindsight.

Ken

[Quick Steel]

A good question produced a great bunch of information. Thanks all.

[KnifeSlinger#81]

It would be interesting to hear some figures on how many bone versus delrin on all these knives. Would you say that 80 to 90% of Schrade was delrin? Or is that figure too high?
Mark

If you were to guess 80-90% of all schrades being delrin I think that is much too high. Keep in mind that they produced knives for 100 years, over half of those years bone was the standard material. Between the world wars schrade had two factories, so by all indications they likely made a ton of knives at least in their heyday. In these times they used bone, genuine stag, wood, mother of pearl, celluloid, and also some kind of black synthetic that was jigged.

The amount of delrin knives they made was vast as well, maybe more, maybe less than bone ones but we'll likely never know. All in all, schrade was a big producer.

[Sharpnshinyknives]

Thank you all, very helpful information. I guess the knives that have been coming up for auction have been made during that period when Schrade moved to mostly Delrin. I can see the reason older bone knives are more valuable but coudln’t figure out why knives made of bone from the same period would be worth so much more.
I noticed that about Case myself, having bought and sold a collection that spanned the late 60’s and later. Case stuck to the natural materials through that time that Schrade was moving to Delrin. Seems that they are trying once again to move to a lot of synthetic material lately. I am sure they are worried about the high price points their knives have. The latest catalog shows, white synthetic, ivory kyranite, Micarta or black canvass laminate, corelon, black composite or Delrin, and many varieties of color on the synthetics. And still the prices are higher on the knives.
I made a mistake on that first collection, by selling off the black delrin jack knives that were in there. I had no idea how popular a 70’s black delrin jack would be. There were 3 in that collection and was amazed at how much they sold for. Amazed because I don’t like synthetic materials very well, I prefer bone, stag or horn. So what they fetched was some pretty good money. But the delrin handled Schrades I sold from the same era, brought next to nothing.
I appreciate the information. It’s amazing to me that manufactures don’t keep track of this information. Case and a few others have really done us all a service by dating their knives. Wish it was easier on other brands to do the same.
Mark