All About Pocket Knives

Okay. Why?
I ask so I can learn.

Not sure of that one Cal,but the seller has some nice knives.I have bought a couple that I made offers on.His asking price is usually pretty stiff.

The reasons I don't like it (and they may not be legitimate) are:
I am not aware of a stockman that big in their old catalog pages, although I should probably look again.
I would have expected a matchstrike pull on the pre-war knife that big.
I don't see a tang stamp that seems right.
Etches are regularly faked now on high dollar items, and there have been a number of faked Western States knives offered on ebay in the last couple years.
My reasons are obviously mostly circumstantial evidence, but the aforesaid all taken together make me feel uneasy about the knife.

tongueriver wrote:The reasons I don't like it (and they may not be legitimate) are:
I am not aware of a stockman that big in their old catalog pages, although I should probably look again.
I would have expected a matchstrike pull on the pre-war knife that big.
I don't see a tang stamp that seems right.
Etches are regularly faked now on high dollar items, and there have been a number of faked Western States knives offered on ebay in the last couple years.
My reasons are obviously mostly circumstantial evidence, but the aforesaid all taken together make me feel uneasy about the knife.

Thanks. Not that I'm interested in the knife, just interested in learning.

tongueriver wrote:The reasons I don't like it (and they may not be legitimate) are:
I am not aware of a stockman that big in their old catalog pages, although I should probably look again.
I would have expected a matchstrike pull on the pre-war knife that big.
I don't see a tang stamp that seems right.
Etches are regularly faked now on high dollar items, and there have been a number of faked Western States knives offered on ebay in the last couple years.
My reasons are obviously mostly circumstantial evidence, but the aforesaid all taken together make me feel uneasy about the knife.

Agreed.

Is it possible that just the primary blade was replaced? It seems a bit odd to me that the 2nd & 3rd blades would have signs of tarnish and a bit of pitting, but the primary looks pristine with a zero-wear etch?

Nothing about that knife looks Western States. They made very few without lined bolsters and without shields and the ones close to that frame shape that they did make were narrower as they got out close to the bolsters. Yeah, I agree it would probably also had match striker pulls. The older ones had larger etches but they did get smaller later on. My "guess" is a complete fantasy. It's too bad someone didn't make it and put their own name on it because it does look like a nice knife. I'd be shocked if we are proved wrong. ___Dave

I agree. This is just going off memory, but I was thinking that they did make a large stockman, that may be completely wrong and I don't have any old catalogues. But I agree on all the other points. That main blade and the etch on it are a big turn off, just don't look right. I also think it would have had a match strike pull as well.

It's party. But it don't look Western to me.

Here it is. In case someone is looking at this thread after the eBay pics are gone.

Ken

First caveat - I specialize in Western FIXED blades and only OCCASIONALLY dabble with folders.

Second caveat - I dang sure don't know everything about anything. I don't even know something about everything.

Images included for posterity






That being said, IMO, this is NOT a legitimate Western pocket knife.

1- The blade etch and tang stamp don't match. With that etch, the tang stamp should be the arched WESTERN STATES over BOULDER COLO.

NOTE - TKMWWW indicates that the tang stamp on this main blade was used from 1928 to 1931. I personally have only seen that stamp on FIXED BLADES MADE FOR WESTERN BY MARBLES, KABAR and CASE. I would love to be proved wrong on that observation.

2- The blade etch is in too good a shape to be a 77+ year old knife. The arched tang stamp ceased being used in 1950. The blade etch was last used in 1941. (obviously sold for a while after that.)

3- The blades themselves have been buff up. If you look closely, there are the remains of rust pits on all 3 blades. For a knife to have pits remaining after they have been shined up that well should have removed any semblance of the blade etch, which was rather shallow from the git go.

4- I can find no evidence of Western ever putting out a 4-7/8" anything, much less a stockman (or as Western referred to them - premium stock pattern). They made a few 4-3/8" and a few 5" and up, but none at 4-7/8".

NOTE - I have no catalog references from 1946 to 1949, so Western MIGHT have put one out for a brief period, if I'm gonna be fair, but in reality???? I doubt it. I also don't have anything between the 1919 catalog and the 1931 catalog, a wider period, but also arched tang only.

5- The main blade APPEARS to be too short for that handle. When I blow the picture up and compare the main blade length to the handle length, assuming 4-7/8" OALC is correct, the blade would be about 1/2" shorter than it could be. Why make a knife that long and then skimp on the main blade length?

6- Virtually all of Western's folding knives had shields of some sort. Not all, but like 98% or more. A big ole chunk of stag?/bone? like this knife has is just screaming for the standard Western "badge" shield. A big-assed oval at a minimum.

7- Finally, when I sit back and LOOK at the knife, it just doesn't SAY "This is a Western knife" to ME. Y'all know what I mean there???

So I say frankenknife.