All About Pocket Knives

I have quite a love affair with the schrade cut and walden versions of the once common jr. cattle knife pattern. In the pre war days there were quite a large variety of options, some even having four blades. What a dandy pattern it is packing very capable blades with beautiful lines and proportions. Without a doubt it is one of my favorite patterns. It did not survive into the swinden and delrin era of schrade, the last photo being the final example of the pattern before it was never made again. Here are all of my examples to date, long did I search for them but it's only the beginning.
Does anybody else care to share theirs?

Wow. Even one of those is hard to find in near mint condition and you have a few 'little cows'. Very impressive !
kj

more yearling kine.

kootenay joe wrote:Wow. Even one of those is hard to find in near mint condition and you have a few 'little cows'. Very impressive !
kj

Thank you Roland.

Cal, I am envious of your 8563!

KnifeSlinger#81 wrote: Cal, I am envious of your 8563!

We have a mutual admiration society. That pearly is just great.

tongueriver wrote:

KnifeSlinger#81 wrote: Cal, I am envious of your 8563!

We have a mutual admiration society. That pearly is just great.

Thank you my friend I only wish it's blades were as good as yours, but at least they're not terribly far off.

Beautiful knives Paul and Cal!!

Here is my Schrade Walden. Never used or sharpened post production!

One more for you:
Paul and Cal those are some amazing examples, Lloyd that one just blew me away! You guys have got some incredible collections!

Eric

Some beautiful knives are coming out of the woodwork I just can't get enough of this pattern.

A sister.

I have compared an ulster jr like yours to early SW 856's and the only discernible difference (aside from the stamp) is the steel liners and bolsters on the ulster and brass liners with NS bolsters for the schrades. The blade profiles, finish, length, and bone is the same. They really are the same knife.

Wow! Some fantastic examples are being posted. I hope you guys start another thread for the 3 5/8" Cattle Knives and show some of those too.

It looks as though someone got some acid or something on the main blade of this one as the finish is dulled in the odd looking areas, almost like a bead blast. Still very much preferable to buffing. However it has factory edges, pointy tips, crisp grinds and crisp jigging. An unadulterated knife that was used a little and then put away for many years. Have I mentioned how much I love these little things?
This one is a little bit of a project, albeit minor. Odd that the sheepsfoot is so worn down while the spey has the factory edge and the clip is near full. I've noticed that this wavy bone has a tendency to shear the jigging and also crack; all the examples of this bone I have (with one exception) show these characteristics.

Paul is your top one marked "Stainless" ? I had a Schrade Cut Co marked "Stainless" and it had 'pot holes' in the blades where chunks of steel had come out. The earliest stainless steel had 'issues'. The sheepsfoot looks to have similar 'pot holes'.
kj

kootenay joe wrote:Paul is your top one marked "Stainless" ? I had a Schrade Cut Co marked "Stainless" and it had 'pot holes' in the blades where chunks of steel had come out. The earliest stainless steel had 'issues'. The sheepsfoot looks to have similar 'pot holes'.
kj

No it's carbon steel. I have never seen a stainless jr cattle, I don't know if they even made them.

There is some staining on the sheepsfoot with a little bit of light pitting, perhaps that is what you are seeing?

I thought the pits looked deeper.
If you look at pages 59 &60 Cat E it shows SCC Stainless knives. No. SS8173 is a 3 5/8" Cattle knife with "Bone Stag" handle (Jigged bone)
kj

I have only seen the 3 5/8" stainless ones like those in the catalog, a member here owns one that is quite perfection. A 3 3/8" in stainless would be a pretty neat knife. Perhaps one will turn up some day.

This one is a little different.

Fine Junior Cattle Calvin but it is not stainless. Seems only the large Cattle was ever made with stainless steel.
kj

I like that one Cal. The DE stamp and shield have always looked very good to me.

I wonder if the spey and punch combination was the most common variation "back in the day".

KnifeSlinger#81 wrote:
I wonder if the spey and punch combination was the most common variation "back in the day".

Horse tack was mandatory on the farm/ranch so the punch was a tool used far more than a spey blade (i.e. for speying or castrating; but it still was a backup blade otherwise). A clip or spear master, a pen, a sheepfoot, and a punch would be my ideal pocket knife for rural living, in a beefy big 4 blade cattle frame. When it came time to round up the spring calf crop for uh...processing, often there would just be one man doing the neutering, while lots of other folk were tending to everything else, roping, holding the critters securely, branding, the fire, food, doing the math, tending to horses, trucks, trailers, ad infinitum. I would of course be the cooler bitch.

Well since Cal had set the precedent (altho I refer to them as cousins)...

Here's the Ulster I just received this week with classic peachseed bone handles
(hope you don't me adding it here Paul as you had already seen it posted in "Knife Lore")...


...and here's a Devine / Ulster with MoP handles I picked up last summer...

Although the pre-war Ulsters were not affiliated with Schrade CutCo, they could have been cousins even then, because the two towns were only a few miles apart. I have read that disgruntled cutlers and their bosses were often at odds over one thing and another and the cutlers were jockying back and forth between the factories all the time. This could partially explain the similarities between the two brands, which diverged somewhat during the war, and then back together again after the 1958 move of everybody to the Ellenville holdings.

I am almost getting to the point that I may need an old 1/2 dozen box to store these 856's in.