All About Pocket Knives

Very nice lineup Paul

espn77 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 11:02 pm Very nice lineup Paul

Thanks Keith.

Great thread Paul and all the participants.

Good to see you posting Hal, of course I could have missed your postings.

I’ve got some to post when I get to my computer.

How about a few yellow ones. I also have a SCCo florist knife in French ivory that I forgot to include with these.
Top three are SCCo's, bottom knife is Shapleigh SCCo made.

nice knives paul and wlf -- keep posting - I never get tired at looking at old knives

Shadow patterns . All SCCo., except the rehandled one is marked C. U. Liggit Phila.. C U Liggett sold seeds as far as I know, I expect it's the same??

These first appeared in 1936 Cat. E supplement.Not many shadow patterns are 4 1/8". Extra THICK liners for strength as described in the cut and heavy duty pivot pins. The French ivory has the standard blades on most Schrade farmers jacks

The Fibestos material handles didn't last . I have one original fibestos handled knife below and one that's been rehandled. A Schrade S 7309F double spring (The only legitimate farmers jack I have found with 2 springs) and a wharcliffe (peach pruner) pruning blade. It also has the extremely unique budding blade with the spud atop and the thumb rest at the tang.(My all time favorite blade) Also has the flat sided blades. Very cool knife!

David Anthony gave me the rehandled one that he did.It was given to him by the trout fishing guy in NE Penn. that doesn't post any longer. I don't know if he's still alive and am sorry I can't remember his name right now. Saurconian ?,I think was his username, can't remember his real name though.

Here's what Rich Langston had to say about a Fibestos one he had bought:

"Rescue and return of Farmer Jack

As I have said in the past Rarity and condition are two of the biggest factors to be considered by the collector. Often times if a knife is very rare the condition is not as important as it would be on a model or pattern not as unusual or as difficult to obtain. Once in a while you will find a knife which is both rare and in excellent condition. Even more rare is to find an example to which you can validate with a history or provanance. In the past this was not as difficult to do as it is today. In the past people did not know what they had. In todays market the public is much more informed and growing more so each day. The exception to this is when a knife is so rare that people do not recognize it or you know something about that is not generally known or understood. Then once in a while a knife will ( so to speak ) fly under the radar.

I recently received a knife that I purchased on ebay. It is a S7309F (see pic catalogue ref) which is a 4,1/8" Budding and Pruning knife. These were also called farmers jacks, farmer knives, and Wharncliff jacks. These knives had an unusual patterned budding blade with a bark loosener and a pruning blade. This model was handled in Fibestos. This was a very early step up from celluloid and more stable. They also made this knife in a bolstered, shielded bone stag version # S7303 as well as an imi ivory cell version #S7304W. While celluloid and jigged bone can be replaced the original Fibestos is and never will be available again. The fact is that ( relatively ) very few of these were made, as well as this materials property of getting brittle over the years ( it was a form of early plastic) and breaking, means that very few examples in good condition even exist and most of those are in more common patterns that these materials were used on.

While years ago I did own a jigged bone version. I was forced to trade it to another collector as part of 8 knives I traded for a Press Button Guardian. I needed the knife for a book I was writing and really had no other choice. Since then I have seen a couple they were part of the Schrade collection. The only one I have ever seen in fibestos was the one in this collection and it was in pristene condition. When it was announced that Schrade would be selling its collection piece by piece at auction upon liquidation. A 30 page individual listing of these knives was put out. I still have that copy and on page 6 it lists the knife to which I refer. I had noted it to bid on it. ( see pic actual listing from originaly listed pieces ) . As we all know the auction never happened Smokey cut a deal bought it all and has been selling it.

I remembered seeing the knife and it was listed on page 6 of 30 on panel #7B. Because of my affialiation with Schrade I had taken pictures of these panels but since Smokey was on the way to pick them up at the time I was a bit rushed and did not number the panels. Now looking through I cannot find the exact knife however I included a pic of the bone version in the collection which was also on a panel just to show how they were displayed. ( see pic). Schrade made many variations of budding knives most were quite common this model was not.

This knife was apparently sold to a ( well known dealer ) who put it on ebay. He lists it as coming from the Schrade collection and having been bought from Smokey. A couple of well known names bid on it and i sniped it . Sniping is about the only way I seem to be able to bid anything since as soon as I bid early usually other bidders jump in ( from all over). I do not know if it is because of me or everyone has that problem but sniping is fair as far as I am concerned. In this case I paid 130 plus shipping. I was amazed and would have gone much higher ( higher than any sane person would have). The knife is perfect it is like holding a piece of living history. A truly rare pattern in a rare material in Near mint condition. To me this is a treasure.

I have related this story only to show that these items are out there, and present, to the modern collector one of the last opportunitys to save these bits of history and in some cases find items at flea markets and garage sales worth many time what they pay for them. It like any field requires study and determination. I would strongly suggest any reference books available. References aside from informing the reader whet the appetite. This old farmer is back home surrounded by its contemporarys, in a 80 year old Schrade Cutlery display case ( the way it should be ). "

Great stuff Lyle.

I added another bone 861 yesterday so I decided to take a group photo. These are all minty unused except for the light brown one. Super nice knives, great pattern.

Paul

So many more inspiring groups! I appreciate how long it can take to put them together. Thanks for posting.

Here's a mixed bag of handy knives that stretch across a hundred years of Schrade production. A couple just arrived and I still need to give them a cleaning. Thanks again to Jason for pointing me in the right direction regarding the gold-filled senator.

bladecollectorr wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2020 5:04 am Here's a mixed bag of handy knives that stretch across a hundred years of Schrade production.

Dandy little collection. I esp. like the LTD sheepfoot e/o.
Don't recall seeing before ....

I like the variety - and the photo presentation -

Thanks for the kind words.

royal0014 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2020 12:27 pm Dandy little collection. I esp. like the LTD sheepfoot e/o.
Don't recall seeing before ....

That might be due to my scanner struggling with anything mirror-polished. They come out as black.

I had the knife out to polish the sterling shield and give it a full clean and mineral oil soak. I don't think anyone had ever taken it out of the plastic bag before I did. There was a significant amount of ancient, dried-up factory oil on the knife blade and the bag itself had become gummy. It was one of those "time-machine" knives that seemed to be mailed directly from 1985 to me.

Here's tons of detailed info about the Schrade "Currier & Ives" Aurum etched knives. Only two versions actually got made. The "Lightning Express Trains" in 1984 and the "Flying Cloud" in 1985. https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/cur ... es.585705/

1985 Sears Christmas Wishbook page 311 Pics in shipping carton and wall display 1984 knife and original artwork for reference

All of my schrade walden 881’s with bone handles that are minty and unused.

KnifeSlinger#81 wrote: ↑Sun Apr 19, 2020 5:02 pm All of my schrade walden 881’s with bone handles that are minty and unused.

So nice! Great pic.

KnifeSlinger#81 wrote: ↑Sun Apr 19, 2020 5:02 pm All of my schrade walden 881’s with bone handles that are minty and unused.


156C95FD-74BB-40C0-8462-4035C9C3945F.jpeg
6B64ED62-2605-4052-8065-EC229D3C6213.jpeg
675F82B7-6374-4C11-B654-8B9D54E8764B.jpeg
65821622-52BE-4B91-9FAB-377B9BAAF6EC.jpeg

Awesome knives Paul!

PAUL - I REALLY ENJOY SEEING ALL YOUR GREAT SCHRADE KNIVES - WILL YOU SHARE THE SECRET OF GETTING THE HANDLES / SCALES LOOKING SO GREAT ?

Thanks for the comments.

tnorton, I don’t have a secret to make the handles look good. I just try to preserve them the way schrade made them.

Finally filled up this display. The problem was not finding the knives, but finding them at the right price. My last one was the NKCA Founders knife, finally found one with nice fat stag at a price I was willing to pay ($135 plus tax and shipping). The one that took the most searching was the Village of Walden knife (ivory delrin handle). As one might expect the one I paid the most for was the stag 75th Anniversary knife. Knives left to right: Trail of Tears, Custer's Last Fight, 13 Colonies, 75th Anniversary (stag), NKCA Founders, 75th anniversary (delrin), and the Village of Walden. The 13 Colonies knife is #0000 (usually 4-5 with that number used for print media photos).

Beautiful group, Kulrich. I have always liked those huge blades with the nice art!

here is a few 708's i had out giving a once over they are all just little different - of course handle color but shields etc

Kulrich wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2020 9:24 pm Finally filled up this display. The problem was not finding the knives, but finding them at the right price...

Congrats! I totally get your point about price. I'm a Schrade collector with a tight budget so I too usually wait for Schrade deals rather than fixing on specific knives. I'm glad fate smiled on you. That's an ultra-nice Schrade display!

Schrade prices are all over the place and a lot of asking prices are just plain crazy. On the other hand many of the better knives, IMHO, are great deals and should bring more than they do. So I take my own advice as a collector, buy it because you like it, do not look at it as an investment. If the value increases great, if it does not, you still like it.

863's.