The best of the best

A place to discuss & share pictures of counterfeit knives. Please be sure to alert the AAPK community if you spot one. Also make sure to ask questions if you are not certain about the authenticity of a knife you are considering buying or selling. There are plenty of great people here willing to help.
knifeaholic
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Re: The best of the best

Post by knifeaholic »

Miller Bro`s wrote:
knifeaholic wrote:I have toured the Case plant and I can assure you that the tang stamps are stamped on to the blade blanks as part of the blanking process, long before the blades even get to the heat treat ovens. And Case (and other knife companies, at least the traditional manufacturers) have always done it that way. This is verified by looking at the Case sequence of manufacturing boards and by sequence of manufacturing descriptions in the catalogs of other early knife companies.
I don`t know what Case does today in modern times.

I do know I have old catalogs that show the manufacturing sequence of a pocket knife. In the catalogs and actual sequence boards I have seen in person the blades are tang stamped after the hardening, tempering and grinding process.

Dimitri;

Thanks for posting this. I have suspected that some manufacturers did just that. But I never had proof. Which manufacturers did it that way based on what you have seen?

I can only state that Case has done it the way I describe, based on their sequence boards and on my plant visit, and on descriptions of plant visits in days past, at least from the XX era forward.

What you describe, having the tang stamps done after all of the other manufacturing steps are completed, may be the explanation as to why most stamps do not have the black inside the letters. The stamps do not go deep enough since the blade is already heat treated.
Steve Pfeiffer, author of Collecting Case Knives: Identification and Price Guide published by Krause Publications.
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Miller Bro's
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Re: The best of the best

Post by Miller Bro's »

Steve,

I have lots and lots of old unfinished knife blades, mostly all early American, New England area and New York manufacturers in various stages of being finished. These all pre date WWII and I am going to say about all of them were done the way I described.

I have several early 1900`s knife catalogs, the ones in particular that come to mind are the E.C. Simmons catalogs I have from the early 1920`s. Inside they describe the process with pictures. These knives at the time were made by the Walden Knife Co.

This would account for the knives like Charlie`s Robeson`s that you don`t see the black down in the tang stamp.

After WWII there may have been a change in this process by most knife companies and certainly you have seen this first hand at the Case plant, I don`t really collect many knives made after the WWII era, so I cannot say what they do as I have not studied the "modern" manufacturing process extensively.

Another thing to note while we are on the subject, there were companies like Eagle that bought factory seconds, either ground off the tang stamp themselves or bought them with the tang stamp removed, and re-stamped their name on the tangs, all done after the heat treating process. Most people think the tang is too hard and cannot be stamped after the hardening process, this is untrue, they can and were stamped after being hardened.
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PA Knives
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Re: The best of the best

Post by PA Knives »

I have been so angry at this person and the way he treats others with these faked knives, I contacted him a couple of years ago. This is the address I had, ecjack@windstream.net try contacting him directly and voice your concern
Multiple Contributions to Knife Magazine ,
Author of "Great Eastern Cutlery: An American Tradition, the History of the Northfield & Tidioute Brands" & "Tidioute: A Town With an Edge"
jww
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Re: The best of the best

Post by jww »

On ebay you can contact the seller through contact seller or you can ask questions about the items that becomes part of the listing so that everyone can see. Why not flood him with qestions with some of the discrepacies that you see with his knives.

JWW
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basser5
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Re: The best of the best

Post by basser5 »

jww wrote:On ebay you can contact the seller through contact seller or you can ask questions about the items that becomes part of the listing so that everyone can see. Why not flood him with qestions with some of the discrepacies that you see with his knives.

JWW
The seller has to post the information themselves. Its not automatic.

Tim
My name is Tim and i'm a stagoholic.
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Elvis
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Re: The best of the best

Post by Elvis »

[quote="Miller Bros] Another thing to note while we are on the subject, there were companies like Eagle that bought factory seconds, either ground off the tang stamp themselves or bought them with the tang stamp removed, and re-stamped their name on the tangs, all done after the heat treating process. Most people think the tang is too hard and cannot be stamped after the hardening process, this is untrue, they can and were stamped after being hardened.[/quote]

I agree. I can only attest to what I've seen at the Case Factory, but using the process they now use, the tang area doesn't receive the full heat treatment that the rest of the blade does (it sticks out of the machine as it revolves around the heat source). I'm sure that leaves it a bit softer and quite stampable. Even if the full blade received the heat treating, it would just mean the stamps would wear out faster. I'm sure a high pressure press could still get the job done. Also, talking to Steve the other day, it appears even Case didn't always stamp their blades prior to heat treating as they do today.

Just goes to show ya.....there's always more to learn.
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celluloidheros
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Re: The best of the best

Post by celluloidheros »

Thanks, DC
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