All About Pocket Knives

I purchased this LB5 for my store. When I opened the box I was suprised to find that the handle material and pins on the knife are diffrent than any other I've seen.

Your opinions and comments please

Keith

Bone handles? Do you think they are OEM?

I have not seen that before.
Its a beauty, I bet that goes into your collection!

Are they bone? It looks like wood to me. Very nice, in any case.

See how the bone is chipped away at the pin? At least I think so.

I believe that the knife came from the factory with smooth bone handles. It came in its original factory packaging and shows no signs of being reworked.

All of the other LB5's that I have with wood handles, have pins that are flush with the wood. As you can see in the photos, 2 of the 3 pins on this knife have heads.

I was thinking that the knife was some sort of SFO but I've never seen another one

Keith

I have taken Keith's LB5 to show my Mom and Uncle, both Long time Schrade employees and they have confirmed that this is in fact a "FACTORY" Schrade Knife.

They said that they had not produced a lot of them and the reason for the different types of pins was to alleviate cracking of the bone handles. Apparently they damaged a lot of the bone covers trying to pin them as they did the wooden covers. The fix was to spin the heads of the rivets and that is what you see in the pictures.

Thanks Keith!

Tom

Hoping someone else chimes in here; My impression is that all the companies began spinning the pins instead of peening them with a little hammer, almost a hundred years ago. Are the flush pins (when we see that) spun, then ground flush with the handles? Or are they tapped or pressed to swell them, and then ground flush? I bet Dale knows these answers.

If those are smooth bone handles then that is the best simulated wood grain finish I have ever seen

I thought the pins were peened with a hammer and then spun to finish them. Not sure but that is a great looking knife Keith!