Oddball trappers

[muskrat man]

Here are a couple oddball (to me anyway) trappers I picked up at the farmers market today. The first is a 94OT, nothing really odd here except for the threaded bolsters, which I have never seen on a standard OT. I think maybe some overrun frames from some heritage or DU knives?


Second is a 285UH serialized inside the liner # 2709 (early one) standard Schrade Walden era quality with the milled liners ECT. A couple odd things here, the first UH marked SW I have seen in carbon steel, and the spey is of a different profile than the standard spey blade, it is more of a spear. At first I thought someone had the blades switched out into an UH frame but the back tang reads clear as a crystal 285UH. Any thoughts? I guess the very early waldens were carbon?

[orvet]

Nice ones Kaleb!
I run across those sorts of things every once in a while with carbon steel blades when you expect to find stainless. If I like the pattern, I keep them for users. I really like the milling on the liners of the 285. I don't know of any special issues of the knife that were made like that. Perhaps they were made with leftover parts, as you pointed out.

Nice grab on both those,
Dale

[upnorth]

The milled liners look very cool next to the patina-ed steel! Interesting knives, Kaleb!!

[thawk]

Kaleb - You bring up a not so well known fact, or in my case it was an assumption unil recently. Plus those threaded bolsters are new to me, and look sweet. I have an early 285UH in the brown box with the pamplet. On this little pamplet the "Hunters and Trappers" knife is listed as having "high-carbon tool steel", the 885 is listed as "high-carbon stainless steel". I believe the same applied with the Schrade Walden 285UH Uncle Henry's. My 285UH is F5929 serial number. Liners are not milled. Tang Stamp is SCHRADE / N.Y. USA / 285UH. There is no SCHRADE+, and SCHRADE was fairly consistent in those days of marking stainless blades (STAINLESS), even the secondary blades. I was surprised when I got this one, and did not realize (at least some) of the early 285UH were carbon unlike than the years following. Anyway, that is my translation about the steel, I could be wrong though, since I have not seen Schrade put an edge like this on a carbon steel blade.



http://www.collectors-of-schrades-r.us/ ... W-CATS.pdf

Checking this 1972 Schrade Walden catalog shows the 285UH and 171UH were high carbon cutlery steel, the remaining Uncle Henry's as high carbon stainless steel.

[ea42]

Nice finds Kaleb! Here's another 285, VERY early vintage serial #00067. Has same blade shape and milled liners as well. No sign of stainless, even has a few minute spots typical of HC:

[upnorth]

Nice trappers Kaleb, Hal, and Eric! It looks like a sign of authenticity is that polished "halo" just above the cutting edge.
I like the fact that there are some UHs with the more desireable (IMO) carbon steel. I will have to look more closely at them!
Thanks for putting them up guys.

[muskrat man]

cool! nice to know mine isn't the only one. now for the great search to find when they started unsing stainless in the trappers, and what the last serial # was for a carbon UH looks like at least 5929 of them are floating around out there according to Thawk's knife. this is fun

[thawk]

I have a SCHRADE+ with 94078 if you want to try and find out when the steel changed.

[muskrat man]

cool. thanks thawk. can anyone else fork up some numbers on thier stainless walden trappers? the earlier the better