All About Pocket Knives

You have the best of the 171's and the handle is the finest elk antler i have seen, it is rare to get all exterior surface as your knife has.
I think you now have the finest 171 knife in existence.
kj

Thanks, guys...Herman made that one for himself and was a little hesitant to let it go..a little sweet talk and a pile of greenbacks did the trick though.

Doug that is a fantastic knife. Glad it's yours.

Got another 8OT Stockman!

I've neglected this thread some, mostly because I'm not fortunate enough to come across a whole lot of nice Schrades.

Here are my last two acquisitions.

I have always been fond of those muskrats. Never seemed to get around to carrying one but they would make a nice carry, I think. Thanks for posting those knives .
I was inspired to post in the 'fixed blades' sticky on the Schrade subforum a few days back, because I had ordered two knives that were pertinent to the subject. Here is one of them, a Craftsman mfg at the cusp of the branding changeover 1972-1973. It is possible that these Craftsmans were the very first (and therefore ostensibly a "Schrade Walden") (although they had moved to Ellenville about 1958) 153s ever made. I say this because when new patterns arose, it was typical to send the first run to Baer's old friend SEARS. I also purchased a Schrade Walden 153 this week; refer to my post in the sticky to learn about this subject. These rare Craftsman knives came with an elephant hide sheath, seen also on a few 165s and a few 171s. The story is that Baer had a hide tanned after a trip to Africa, but there is not consensus on this subject. I tend to believe it. I have 3 or 4 of these sheaths.

Cal, I can't remember where I read it but he story I heard was that Baer was on a hunt in Africa and bought some hides from the local village.

Thank you, Doug. Maybe someone else will chime in on that one. Say... Herman sent me something.

tongueriver wrote:Thank you, Doug. Maybe someone else will chime in on that one. Say... Herman sent me something.

Cal, you gonna share?

Cal, I did a little searching and found this in my archives:

Eric Albers 10-9-2012: “Dave Swinden confirmed that to me a while back as well (real elephant hide sheaths). One of the Baers had gotten a shipment of them and expected big sales, but they just didn't catch on.”

Eric Albers 10-10-2012: “I spoke with Dave today and it seems that both Albert and Henry took a trip to Africa about the time that there was a rather large overpopulation of elephants eating everything in sight, around 1970 or 71 ( maybe Norm Thompson accompanied them! ). There was a cull of about 20,000 or so animals with a resulting mountain of hides. The Baers purchased a number of them and had them tanned and possibly even cut, Dave recalls that they wanted to help the folks out over there economically so had some of the work done over there. Don't know how much they got but I do know that they used it on the 165's and the 171's.”

Thank you for that excellent information, Doug! (priceless).

dweb1897 wrote:

tongueriver wrote:Thank you, Doug. Maybe someone else will chime in on that one. Say... Herman sent me something.

Cal, you gonna share?

OK.

dweb1897 wrote:Just got some outdoor pics of this one taken...my 200th Herman Williams knife
Schrade Walden 171UH with Natural Elk scales and file work
SCHRADE WALDEN 171UH with NATURAL ELK-r (1).jpgSCHRADE WALDEN 171UH with NATURAL ELK-r (2).jpgSCHRADE WALDEN 171UH with NATURAL ELK-r (5).jpgSCHRADE WALDEN 171UH with NATURAL ELK-r (6).jpg

Your elk and my sambar- King and Queen?

tongueriver wrote:

dweb1897 wrote:Just got some outdoor pics of this one taken...my 200th Herman Williams knife
Schrade Walden 171UH with Natural Elk scales and file work
SCHRADE WALDEN 171UH with NATURAL ELK-r (1).jpgSCHRADE WALDEN 171UH with NATURAL ELK-r (2).jpgSCHRADE WALDEN 171UH with NATURAL ELK-r (5).jpgSCHRADE WALDEN 171UH with NATURAL ELK-r (6).jpg

Your elk and my sambar- King and Queen?

Herman didn't miss a lick on that Sambar 171... Here I was all happy and content with my Elk 171 and you had to go and post that big ole beautiful knife of your's, now I'm thinking maybe I need one in Sambar... Thanks a bunch Cal...Did Herman put you up to this?

Cal that 171 is unbelievable - congrats!

I'm having a real busy day so just shot this one poor pic of what has to be my best mail call ever. I traded Herman some new SW's for some blade swaps and re-handles on some users and some pretty good ones...also bought a couple he had. I'll post some more pic's when I have the time to take decent shots. Asked Herman to pick the re-handle material....how good is that celluloid and the Winterbottom?
2 SW-787's , SW-863, S-863, SW-233, S-233, SW-163, SW-171

A great selection of well manicured knives Doug. Your collection continues to swell with more extraordinary cutlery.
Tony.

dweb, that rope knife with the ram horn handles sticks out to me. I think I'm right on the handles. Good looking group.

Doug - WOW! Amazing group of knives there and I'm with doglegg on that 163.

This here is just a little advertising Office Knife that showed up today. It's untouched in the original packaging and it's stainless, which I thought was unusual for the pattern.

Here is a catalog cut of your nice knife.

Received this HP-2 today (it is the smaller one) and am delighted. Problem: safe queen because of the etch or stick it into game animal 'parts.' ? Speaking of which, my ancient trusty schnauzer decided to take on a mulie doe today in our front yard, which did not go well. Fortunately she was not seriously hurt. Now I have murder in my heart for the mulie. We have deer all over town who have gotten aggressive at times. When the bucks go into rut, I start "carrying."

tongueriver wrote:Received this HP-2 today (it is the smaller one) and am delighted. Problem: safe queen because of the etch or stick it into game animal 'parts.' ? Speaking of which, my ancient trusty schnauzer decided to take on a mulie doe today in our front yard, which did not go well. Fortunately she was not seriously hurt. Now I have murder in my heart for the mulie. We have deer all over town who have gotten aggressive at times. When the bucks go into rut, I start "carrying."
hp21.jpg

When deciding whether or not to store or use that knife, consider that it is from the 1997 Heritage collection, if you didn't already know. I don't think that the sheath is original to the knife though. VERY NICE KNIFE!

Nice knife .I think I would keep it as a safe queen.
I think the sheath is right,but who knows the way Schrade kept records.If the knife fits it must be right.
If you keep a knife as a safe queen depends how one feels.It's your knife it's up to you.The question on all collector lips is use it or not.
Enjoy it.
It's fun to collect

Grant

Thanks for the input, folks! I will put it away after a suitable time of fiddling with it. I have so many hunting knives I could never even get them all sharpened in my lifetime, much less use them. Mustanger, I sent you a pm on August 31st that you have not opened.

tongueriver wrote:Here is a catalog cut of your nice knife.

Now I'm curious what an 'office' blade is? Nice PH2 btw! I'm afraid to use any knife with an etch. I'd have that one on display somewhere.