All About Pocket Knives

I picked up a couple of Uncle Henrys and realized that they had serial numbers on the liners. Did all Uncle Henry's have serial numbers? Do the serial numbers represent a production year or anything else? The 897 has a serial number of C4504 and the 885 a serial number of R6339.

a quick answer-
The serial numbers were started because of the one year guarantee against loss on the Uncle Henrys.
After going through all the numbers to 99,999 (I think it was 5 digits originally, but it may have been 4 digits) then they added the "A" prefix, then "B", etc through "Z". Then it was "AA", "AB", "AC", etc, then BA, BB,BC, etc. When they finally stopped it they were at something like LM, so that had been through the alphabet several times.

I am not sure of the date they stopped using the serial numbers entirely. I think I have that info somewhere, finding it is the problem.

The lower the number, the earlier the date, but you have to look at the date the pattern was introduced and work forward from there. The knives were far more successful than they had apparently anticipated. The numbers were dropped and as well as the loss guarantee, IIRC. When you are making millions of a pattern it becomes cumbersome to number them and keep a registry of who bought which numbers.

Great information. Being that these are numbered C4504 and R6339 they may be fairly early in that era. Thanks.

The earliest ones were made in 1967 and were marked Schrade Walden. They had serial numbers starting with 0001 I believe. There were no letters for quite some time. Initially they came in a hinged brown box.

My memory from Ozzie Marie telling me, was around 1973 when they stopped

The last year it mentions "serialized" Uncle Henry knives in the old Schrade USA catalogs was 1979.

http://www.collectors-of-schrades-r.us/ ... /index.htm

Here is a link to the catalogs on the collector site.


PIC from the 1975

Anyone can loose a knife...

I have a Schrade Walden NY Uncle Henry with a serial number on the liner of 00136. From what I am reading from the posting is that I might have a rare 3 blade knife. I have been trying to research so that I can sell but now I am wondering if I have something rare. Thank you for any info you can give me,
Ann

You don't say what knife you have, but that number would have been assigned on the first day of manufacture of that pattern.

If it's a three blade walden uncle henry it'd have to be either an 897 or 885. Do you have any pictures of the knife?

Here is one I just finished a restoration on....
It is a Schrade-Walden 127 Uncle Henry. This one was a train wreck I found out in the bay. I took it apart, fixed the liner lock (which looked like a snake), cleaned it up and put it back together. The SN is 09288 and it has the "thick" covers.

That came out sweet. Nice work

Thanks James!