What is Your Latest Old Schrade?

[KnifeSlinger#81]

Pre-war. Pattern S8373 (page 21 of catalog E reprint). SFO for JKB shop.

DANG!!! What a beautiful cattle knife.

[FatCity67]

Pre-war. Pattern S8373 (page 21 of catalog E reprint). SFO for JKB shop.

DANG!!! What a beautiful cattle knife.

All by itself it's an absolute stunner.

The fact that it's also a Jack Knife Shop marked knife sold out of Benjamin Chon's shop at the Chicago Stockyards adds even more to the knife for me.

Be interesting to know if it was sold before Chon retired and turn the shop over to his sons.

[tongueriver]

Be interesting to know if it was sold before Chon retired and turn the shop over to his sons.

I just got done reading from SEVERAL sources on the JKB story and mostly conflicting information and some opinions on Schrade involvement which I do not agree with. Anyway, one source said that Chon turned the business over in 1928. Although one source whom I respect said in a couple places that he thought Schrades for JKB were made in the late 1940s and into the 1950s, I do not think this is always so. The knife I posted is definitely of 1935 to 1941 vintage, according to my eight years of study of older Schrades. Just my opinion, of course. I also have a tang-stamped Schrade WALDEN 1950s knife with a JKB etch which would fit SOME of the Schrade involvement. It is amazing to me how few years need to elapse before important information is lost forever... "We are but dust in the wind."
The Schrade Walden:

[Dinadan]

Reading about the difficulty in determining who made a particular knife is starting to make my head hurt! I have a question about who made some Schrades but I need to get some good photos before I ask a question which has probably already been answered here in the past

Tongueriver - that Schrade JKB is one fine knife! I am not a big stockman fan, but that knife I like!

[FatCity67]

Be interesting to know if it was sold before Chon retired and turn the shop over to his sons.

I just got done reading from SEVERAL sources on the JKB story and mostly conflicting information and some opinions on Schrade involvement which I do not agree with. Anyway, one source said that Chon turned the business over in 1928. Although one source whom I respect said in a couple places that he thought Schrades for JKB were made in the late 1940s and into the 1950s, I do not think this is always so. The knife I posted is definitely of 1935 to 1941 vintage, according to my eight years of study of older Schrades. Just my opinion, of course. I also have a tang-stamped Schrade WALDEN 1950s knife with a JKB etch which would fit SOME of the Schrade involvement. It is amazing to me how few years need to elapse before important information is lost forever... "We are but dust in the wind."
The Schrade Walden:
891 JKB.jpg
891 JKB2.jpg

Thanks for the update Cal. So imagine what we have lost as a civilization before so much info can now be stored almost Ad infinitum.

As an aside William Shawn son of Benjamin worked his was to Editor of New Yorker Magazine and Wallace
Shawn his son is a character actor seen in many movies and successful playwright comedian. Another American Family Story of Rags to Riches.

Phil

[specgrade]

Born in the USA

[tongueriver]

I could not help myself. A bone 861 carrying knife with milled liners for $25?

[dweb1897]

What a great score Cal, gotta love those Slenderinos

[tongueriver]

What a great score Cal, gotta love those Slenderinos

So... you must be on your way. You lucky dog; don't forget an extra pair of socks to carry stuff home in!
p.s. I hope the knives I sent are OK.

[kootenay joe]

Cal, does your bone Schrade Walden 861 have the pattern # marked on it ?
Delrin was first used in 1960 but even before this Schrade-Walden was using other plastics for knife handles. My question is when did S-W stop using bone as the regular knife handle material ? And was it a gradual transition bone to plastic ? or all in one big step over a 1 or 2 yr period ?
If answers could be known then dating of Schrade-Walden knives would become fairly specific, i.e. narrowed down to the span of just a few years.
kj

[tongueriver]

The 861 does have the pattern number stamped on the pile side. I don't have the knife in hand yet. I believe that it was Eric Albers (not sure about that) who said a few years ago, that the bone supply dried up to nothing and Schrade was so desperate for a handle substitute that they even experimented with Masonite®. I think the scramble was on between roughly 1958 and 1961, but I am not the one to answer that definitively. I think that the celluloid might even have become scarce? Ugly old indestructible Delrin® was manna from heaven, so to speak. I still don't know the exact time frame in which Delrin effected the nearly 100% takeover. Late 1960? Early 1961? Not finished until 1962? I don't know. During all this upheaval, CASE seems to have plugged along with some right stellar bone, no problem. Must have been different suppliers, with territorial contractual rights to production?

[thawk]

I think the years 1958 to 1961 seem right, and there were other plastics used in several patterns before they settled on Delrin. In the catalogs it was called stagged rather than bone stag. I think 1963 was when Delrin took hold across the product line. They called it Staglon for a while. Early Delrin handled Open Stock knives may be called stagged in some of the catalogs. By the time Staglon was introduced there was no more bone stag or stagged descriptions in the catalogs. It was not, in my opinion, a straight across cut off date. I think it varied from pattern to pattern as bone handles ran out of stock.

[tongueriver]

Nice to hear from you, Friend!

[dweb1897]

Nice to hear from you, Friend!

Cal, Had a bout of the pancreatitis the first part of the week or would have gotten a note off thanking you for the knives. Just got back from dinner here in Eugene. OKCA SHOW IN THE MORNING. I'll post some pics when I get a chance.

The switch to delrin really started when the Rogers bone factory burned down didn't it. That ought to be pretty easy to date.

[KnifeSlinger#81]

I like them slenderinos Cal, nice pick up.

[kootenay joe]

Quote: "The switch to delrin really started when the Rogers bone factory burned down didn't it"
Answer: No.
The Rogers bone fire was in early-mid 1950's. I'm sure this put the pressure on the search for an alternative to bone which was already underway. In BF Schrade forum Codger64 posted an in depth history of Delrin. IIRC. Albert Baer had approached Dupont at some time in 1950's and explained what properties were needed in a plastic for knife handles(stable even at high temps, can be milled, not slippery when wet, etc.). It took Dupont a number of years and a few million dollars to come up with Delrin. In 1960 Schrade received their first supply of Delrin and began using it for knife handles, the first usage worldwide.
Thanks tr & th for posts above with dates concerning switch from bone to plastics.
kj

[tongueriver]

The material later trademarked as Delrin® was first studied in the 1920s. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:
"Polyoxymethylene was discovered by Hermann Staudinger, a German chemist who received the 1953 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.[4] He had studied the polymerization and structure of POM in the 1920s while researching macromolecules, which he characterized as polymers. Due to problems with thermal stability, POM was not commercialized at that time.
Around 1952, research chemists at DuPont synthesized a version of POM,[5] and in 1956 the company filed for patent protection of the homopolymer.[6] DuPont credits R. N. MacDonald as the inventor of high-molecular-weight POM.[7] Patents by MacDonald and coworkers describe the preparation of high-molecular-weight hemiacetal-terminated (~O−CH2OH) POM,[8] but these lack sufficient thermal stability to be commercially viable. The inventor of a heat-stable (and therefore useful) POM homopolymer was Dal Nagore,[9] who discovered that reacting the hemiacetal ends with acetic anhydride converts the readily depolymerizable hemiacetal into a thermally stable, melt-processable plastic.
In 1960, DuPont completed construction of a plant to produce its own version of acetal resin, named Delrin, at Parkersburg, West Virginia.[10] Also in 1960, Celanese completed its own research. Shortly thereafter, in a limited partnership with the Frankfurt firm Hoechst AG, a factory was built in Kelsterbach, Hessen; from there, Celcon was produced starting in 1962,[11] with Hostaform joining it a year later. Both remain in production under the auspices of Celanese and are sold as parts of a product group now called Hostaform/Celcon POM."

[upnorth]

Great study of Delrin, boys and girls! A must-read for Schrade lovers everywhere.
Here is a knife that is reputed to have been in the Schrade Cut collection many years ago, but seemed to have strayed away decades before Schrade closed!!! - hmmmm??? Stories abound, but who knows the truth???
Found at the Oregon knife show, hiding under a rock! (NOT)

I think I have only seen one other English Jack with a Lock Back!

[orvet]

Charlie! Why didn't you show me that in Eugene? Were you afraid I would drool on it?

You know durn well I would be foaming at the mouth!

[dweb1897]

Dale, If he'd shown that at the dinner there would have been a full blown battle royal. What a beautiful knife you have there Charlie. If I thought you'd take my first born for that lockback, I'd darn near consider getting married.

[upnorth]

My apologies, Dale! I stashed it away, and didn't bring it back to the show.
Wish I had brought it back. I've never seen you drool!!

Thanks for the nice comments, guys!

[Duffer]

Outstanding EJ Forest Champion Charlie! The stuff knife collecting dreams are made of I saw it and you let me handle it briefly and it was all I could do to keep from drooling on it Happy you found it before I did Congratulations on adding that prize to your collection. I know you found some other absolutely gorgeous condition specimens also. Lloyd

[upnorth]

You have outed me, Lloyd!

JK, JK

Here are the rest of the Schrades I found (below). It was a good show for Schrades!!

[orvet]

Those are nice Charlie, everyone is a 10!

[Tsar Bomba]

So this is where Charlie is hiding out. Snatching up all the fantastic old peachseed bone, too.

A man of many talents, including an eye for cutlery.