All About Pocket Knives

Picked this folder up at a knife show last weekend, can anyone tell me what the handles are made of, I have heard that handles like this with the lines running through are micarta, or are they celluloid, also any info on date of manufacture.

thanks Rusty1

IIRC, it is celluloid. I don't think micarta had been invented when the Schrade Cut Co stamp was used. I think they stopped using that tang stamp after about 1946.

I have a knife or two with those handles and they are really pretty.
Here is a quick scan of a LF&C with those handles. I am pretty sure they are celluloid, but if I am wrong, someone please feel free to correct me.

Dale

Those handles are indeed celluloid.
I've heard that design called imitation Ivory, Ivorine, French Ivory, and Pyralin...maybe other names as well.

Nice knives gents.

Bill

Casein was also used to make faux ivory. It is a dairy by-product. It was quite common in the 1920s-1940s. It had the advantage of being much more stable and resitant to shrinkage than true celluloid. However, it was a complicated process and was subsequently replaced by more easily produced 'plastics'.

I read somewhere that sometimes a little ground ivory powder was added to the celluloid or plastic to produce a more realistic colour.

The roughly parallel wavy lines is the tell-tale sign of faux ivory.

Thanks S-K,

I forgot about casein... ...they could be made of that as well.

If you rub them rapidly with your thumb, and they are celluloid, you can usually smell it...not so with casein. It may, however, moo at you.

Bill

I forgot about casein also.

Thanks S-K

Dale