All About Pocket Knives

Picked up this little,"diamond in the rough" today at a local antique shop.Appears to be a Camillus #86 although the tang stamp has been partially ground away leaving the words,"New York USA" in two lines. The number 86 is stamped on the reverse side.Has an interesting set of parallel line celluloid scales in shades of yellow and brown.Also the pivot rivets have not been ground flush and have a light waffle pattern on them leading me to believe that this was a factory second or possibly a reject that somehow found it's way out of the factory.I believe the reason for it's rejection was that the outer portion of the back springs did not have enough material on them to finish grind them smooth;they still exhibit a bit of rough forging or stamping.
The master blade was tipped when I got it but a little judicious use of my belt sander cured that.I don't recall ever seeing a stockman pattern quite this small(OAL is approximately 3 1/4").It will make a nice little EDC for the price of $5.
As a lot of my collection is unusual and not necessarily expensive knives I feel fortunate to have found it.

I have seen knives like that before that left the factory unfinished.
Most of them were from the closing auction, but occasionally some would slip out even before the end.

The waffle peening pattern is typical of the unfinished Camillus knives I have seen.
You can take those down with a file and some sandpaper and them buff it out. It will look like factory finished knife.

The same is true of the unground springs, though the Craftsman peanut has had the springs ground, the Sword Brand has not.
Grinding the springs is pretty easy if you have a rubber contact wheel on your belt sander.
I use a 120 grit belt and it doesn't take long to grind the springs even with the liners.
120 grit seems to leave the same finish as many of the non-premium knives.
The first one or two I did were intimidating, but in reality they are pretty easy to do.

Thanks for the info Dale & Jerry.The back spring photo is actually a bit mis-leading as the springs are actually lower than the scales and liners when the blades are in the closed position so it would require removing quite a bit of material to level them.The blades have a nice uniform gray patina reminiscent of really old I*XL knives.I think I'm just going to leave it as is and rotate it into my EDC line.

A few years before Camillus closed I noticed that they stopped grinding the back springs on work knives like the TL-29s.
As long as there is nothing to snag on the pocket it should work just dandy!
Of course the steel should impress you if you have not used an older Camillus before.

I love my little 86. I toted it for quite awhile.
The color of the scales reminds me of horn.

Mark

Mark -- That's probably why Camillus called it "Brazil Horn Pyroxylin" (Celluloid)

Carrying mine today