Big Bone Trapper

[prairiedog]

I bought this big trapper yesterday and I love the knife...but not familiar with it. It's about 5 1/8" closed...looks old to me...three-eye, straight-line stamp, eye-ball on the back of the tang, older looking bone handles....but the plain shield kinda throws me off a bit. I know in a previous topic this shield was discussed...but is there any conclusions as of yet to when this shield was first introduced on a line of knives...possibly short-lived and reintroduced again??? I just get the feel that this knife is 60's or 70's...but I definitely could be wrong.
Any feedback or discussion would be greatly appreciated...I'd love to know a little more about this knife. Thanks!

PerryWayne

[313 Mike]

Good looking knife! Sorry to say I don't know anything about it though...

[Eye Brand Man]

I have the exact same knife. Although it has all the features of a 60-70's knife I'm not sure when these knives were made.
I have another trapper same size/frame with stag handles and it has the straight line stamp, but on the reverse tang has a pattern #, which as i understand did not come out until 1983ish. This is just a guess/ but I think some of these knives were made in the 1980's from left over parts from the 1960's 70's

[Paladin]

I think Eye Brand Man analyzed the knife pretty well with the exception that pattern numbers started appearing in 1979.
As I have posted previously, the plain round shield is a bit of a mystery. I suspect it came with parts from an earlier era assembled at some later date, such as stated by Eye Brand Man.
Whatever the case, these are beautiful knives along the lines of the Remington Bullet knife.

Ray

[prairiedog]

Thank-you all for the responses and insight...not exactly what I was hoping to hear but I'm feeling more knowledgeable about my knife and satisfied nonetheless! Thanks again, appreciate this forum!

[EyeBJoe]

I will submit another perspective and opinion to add to the other posts. I agree that the plain round shield does present a bit of a mystery. The round shields that were introduced in the early 1980's had some form of logo embossed on them. Also, from all the printed material and catalogs that I have assembled on the cutlery over the years there was not an example of a "barehead" trapper as in the subject knife. All the trappers from the 60's through most of the 80's were manufactured with bolsters on both ends of the representative knives. As only an opinion I would date the knife to some point in the 1990's when other knives with plain round shields were showing up. It is anyone's guess whether knives coming from Schlieper were actually assembled with old parts. My only perspective on this comes from the two trips to Solingen in 1983 and 1989 whereby I witnessed first hand that there first was virtually no inventory of pocket knives at the plant other than a few samples in a showroom. The ingrained efficiency of production that seemed to be evident makes me a bit skeptical as to old parts, but I'm not sure any of us can be sure one way or another. At any rate the subject knife is a great looking knife and a good collectible for sure.

Joe D.

[prairiedog]

Thanks Mr.Dobbs, your perspective and insight is highly appreciated. You, along with all the other knowledgeable knife enthusiasts do a great service in responding to these posts and sharing your experience. I know this site is a great help to old knife-traders and young collectors like me. Again, thanks everyone for the feedback!

PerryWayne