New to the forums and found this site after buying a Remington R1123 knife with a reddish jigged bone handle. I have been looking for other similar knives and haven't found any that have the fully reddish handle. I'm sure they are out there -- but my question is: what makes the handle reddish vs. brown like most knives ? Is it a natural occurrence or is it a man made feature.
Hi and welcome!
Nice knife
If a knife is fitted with bone scales (handles), the cay be dyed any color the maker desires. Bone density plays a part in how much dye is absorbed, thus you may see variations in the shade of the color of dye on the same set of scales.
Case has red handled knives. Many of us have purchased from www.casexx.com Shepard Hills Cutlery.
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TSgt USAF, Retired
1980-2000
But any knife is better than no knife! ~ Mumbleypeg (aka Ken)
Remington bone isn't considered red,brown with a reddish tint maybe.But for the most part,it runs from very dark brown,almost black,to a blondish lite brown.
This reddish bone stuff comes from Case people calling brown bone with some red in it red bone,which it ain't. True red bone Case is red.Not reddish brown.True red bone Case knives are more valuable,thus,the desire to call it red bone.
Thanks for the replies. So would they have dyed handles back in the 20's 30's? This certainly has some reddish (dark mauve) color to it. I didn't know if this was naturally occurring or not.
over45 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 8:45 pm
Thanks for the replies. So would they have dyed handles back in the 20's 30's? This certainly has some reddish (dark mauve) color to it. I didn't know if this was naturally occurring or not.
The 1920’s and 30’s were not the stone age after all. Absolutely they were dying bone back then and even before.
Peanut740 is right. Unless it’s RED it isn’t red bone. Red is red and brown is brown, and I’m a Case fan. Your knife is most definitely brown bone.
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I always consider true Case redbone to be almost like an orange. Honda motorcycles, back in the day, had what was called Honda Red and it was very orangish too. I think this would be considered true Case redbone.
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1967redrider wrote: ↑Sat Dec 05, 2020 12:42 am
I always consider true Case redbone to be almost like an orange. Honda motorcycles, back in the day, had what was called Honda Red and it was very orangish too. I think this would be considered true Case redbone.
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I would respectfully disagree with the orange comment.
Red bone is red. Not red-ish. Not brown and not orange.
Red.
David
"Glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife" Meat Loaf
So if I am understanding it right - virtually all bone knife handles that have color to them have been dyed entirely or in places to create "that bone handle look" since bone itself dries white. I always thought that it was a natural color feature or variation of an antler or animal bone. Thank you for the info.
Antler is a horse of a different feather, so to speak, compared to bone. It'll vary depending on what species it came from, what portion of the antler it came from, whether it's been torched, dyed or whatever. Antlers, unlike most horns (there's another handle material), typically are periodically shed so it isn't necessary to cut it off of a live beast. It's easier to remove horn from a dead animal. But people try anything.
You might want to take a look at this video about pocket knife manufacturing. The process where bone is dyed is about 2:15 into the video.
When I toured the Case factory a few years ago they had a small room of dye vats of various colors, each filled with bone handle cover slabs. Until about late 1970s there was only one basic color of dye, which produced the traditional dark brown-to-reddish brown bone. The shade changed only periodically when a new dye batch was needed. The differences in that basic color being introduced from time to time was caused by slight variations in the dye mixture. Being an organic natural substance, each piece of bone “accepts” the dye differently which results in slight differences in color from piece to piece, even though the pieces were dyed using the same batch of dye.
In the late 1970s Case began producing bone handles having different colors. This was the advent of the various shades of blue, pink, purple, green, yellow, etc which exist today. All due to dyes used. Prior to that if you wanted a different color of handle it was a synthetic material, like celluloid for example, or some other “plastic”.
Hope you find this helpful.
Ken
Member AKTI, TSRA, NRA.
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Very helpful video. Thank you very much for posting it. i also watched a video of an older English gentleman making knives by hand. This forum is a great resource for learning and I don't collect knives but am going to start looking closer at them when I see them available. I plan to sell this R1123 and buy something smaller. I came across it when looking for very old spoons which I collect.
Mumbleypeg wrote: ↑Sat Dec 05, 2020 3:32 pm
You might want to take a look at this video about pocket knife manufacturing. The process where bone is dyed is about 2:15 into the video.
When I toured the case factory a few years ago they had a small room of dye vats of various colors, each filled with bone handle cover slabs. Until about late 1970s there was only one basic color of dye, which produced the traditional dark brown-to-reddish brown bone. The shade changed only periodically when a new dye batch was needed. The differences in that basic color being introduced from time to time was caused by slight variations in the dye mixture. Being an organic natural substance, each piece of bone “accepts” the dye differently which results in slight differences in color from piece to piece, even though the pieces were dyed using the same batch of dye.
In the late 1970s Case began producing bone handles having different colors. This was the advent of the various shades of blue, pink, purple, green, yellow, etc which exist today. All due to dyes used. Prior to that if you wanted a different color of handle it was a synthetic material, like celluloid for example, or some other “plastic”.
Hope you find this helpful.
Ken
Very good explanation Ken.
David
"Glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife" Meat Loaf
Old Case red bone vs. new red bone, from Steve's book Collecting Case Knives, Identification and Price Guide. Old red looks orangish to me, especially the lighter it is, not nearly as red as the newer/current red bone. Could just be my eyes.
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Pocket, fixed, machete, axe, it's all good!
You're going to look awfully silly with that knife sticking out of your @#$. -Clint Eastwood, High Plains Drifter
peanut740 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 05, 2020 10:17 pm
When it comes to old Case red bone,if depends on whether you're buying or selling.
Yes exactly.
I made a similar comment way back about green bone.
I said " If you are selling its greenbone, if you are buying then it's not, that is until you own it, then it's greenbone".
David
"Glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife" Meat Loaf
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