All About Pocket Knives

I Picked this up a couple years ago new in box for $10. Why do these seem to sell so much
cheaper than other U.S. made folders? Other than delrin scales this is a really nice
knife and I would say it's every bit as Case knives I have. The pull is a very smooth medium
pull with great snap. The one thing I've noticed about this knife is unlike most knives all
3 blades have the same pull and snap. Is there a way to date the knife by this phot? Thanks Bob

https://g2.img-dpreview.com/DF152CD0C3C ... 3609D2.jpg

Schrade began using the Schrade+ tang stamp in the early 1980s, and went out of business in 2004 - so some time in that 30 year span is as close as I can get. As to why they're not so popular, I will venture a guess. A lot of people don't like the scale material. It doesn't really look natural.

Personally, I love them. I can recall the old advertising campaign - "You can lose your way, but you can't lose your Uncle Henry".
I have a few, including the premium stock knife just like yours, and I find them to be great knives that remind me of my youth.

Check out these informative links for Uncle Henry and Schrade knives.

https://www.allaboutpocketknives.com/co ... ry-knives/
download/file.php?id=65219&mode=view
http://www.collectors-of-schrades-r.us/ ... ticles.htm

Your picture appears to be an 897UH, probably the most popular Uncle Henry made. It was made from 1973 to 2004 when Schrade closed.
There were literally millions of 897UHs made, and they are all pretty much the same. Case may produce a pattern for many years but it seems to me they use a lot of various different handle materials , so a collector may need to buy several knives to get all the variants of the pattern each year. Schrade occasionally produced a variant, but not every year. Most 897s were the Staglon Delrin so there are millions of identical knives. The lack of variations in the knife and the sheer numbers of them available today keeps the price down.
At least that is how I see it .

If you picked up a 897 UH NIB for $10 you got a whale of a deal. Here is a recent one that sold on ebay;

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Schrad ... 7675.l2557

I would guess that's not terribly different than what you might expect to pay for a basic Case stockman knife with SS blades and Delrin handles from the same time period? For comparable knives I don't see a big difference. I think Dale hit the nail on the head in that Case issues more variety in handle material and so they are more sought after by collectors and those that want something that their neighbors just don't have. I also suspect a used Case knife would bring more than a comparable UH knife. Just because of the brand name? Knives with bone handles are usually preferred.

I have a 1995 SMKW catalog and went back and looked. The UH stockmen knives are basically $20 knives NIB. The same is true of the Case stockmen knives with SS blades and Delrin handles. There's just not an appreciable difference.

robertj298 wrote: ↑Sat Jan 30, 2021 1:33 am I Picked this up a couple years ago new in box for $10. Why do these seem to sell so much
cheaper than other U.S. made folders? Other than delrin scales this is a really nice
knife and I would say it's every bit as Case knives I have. The pull is a very smooth medium
pull with great snap. The one thing I've noticed about this knife is unlike most knives all
3 blades have the same pull and snap. Is there a way to date the knife by this phot? Thanks Bob

https://g2.img-dpreview.com/DF152CD0C3C ... 3609D2.jpg

Shhhh.. Don't tell everybody that USA Schrades are too cheap, Robert.. More for us!

The question regarding value and comparison to Case hits on something that has interested me for years. As others have pointed out, price/value is driven by supply and demand. Both Case and Schrade have ample supply. But hands down there is more demand for Case, which therefore commands a higher price. Why?

After contemplating and studying cutlery history, my opinion is that when Delrin came on the scene as a knife handle cover material in the 1960s/70s, it was the turning point. Delrin is a remarkable material - stable, inexpensive, can be colored and worked to imitate many natural materials (bone, stag, etc) and synthetics like celluloid. Without the inherent problems of those traditional materials, like cracks, chips, shrinkage, and cost. By traditional knife making standards it was a “no-brainer”, and most of not all cutleries converted large portions of their output to Delrin handle covers. Schrade, Camillus, Queen, Western, Kabar, Case and others introduced their own proprietary signature versions of imitation stag, imitation jigged bone, imitation Winterbottom, etc. From the viewpoint of “a better more serviceable knife” Delrin was a winner. Although they did introduce a line of Delrin-handled knives Case was pretty much the only mainstream cutlery who didn’t convert the majority of their line. Case continued to offer natural jigged bone and stag as well as Delrin, but Delrin was never their main handle cover material.

But about this same time period, knife collecting was beginning to catch on as a hobby. Case was the first to recognize this new market dynamic, and first to capitalize on it and cater to it in their offerings. Case began receiving feedback from their sales team that customers preferred genuine bone over Delrin. Case also had maintained genuine stag as a standard offering, which also appealed to collectors. Were Case knives better functional tools than Schrade, Camillus, etc.? Although certainly debatable, I’d say no, at least not that most casual knife buying customers would notice.

So here we are decades later with the hindsight that a Case stockman has higher value than the equivalent Schrade, and asking “why?”. Supply and demand. That’s my analysis FWIW.

Ken

That is a good observation, Ken. It about sums it up...

I have always found the fit and finish on Old Timers and Uncle Henry’s to be generally superior to Case. The only issue I have with then is the Swindon(sp) key bolster. I have had one Craftsman knife come loose.

Good post Ken,
Growing up as a boy in the 60's and early 70's you could find a Schrade Uncle Henry or Old Timer knife in about any store you went into back then, heck the small town drug store even had a small display. I carried both UH and OT's all during my youth, My guess was they were more affordable and available and sharpening was a breeze. Even today many years later I carry a OT 83OT, 34OT and when I want to dress up and be fancy I carry the 897UH .