All About Pocket Knives

Thanks guys

Here's a nice old Challenge jack knife. 3 1/2", Half stops x 2.
Celluloid covers. Still a very tight knife.

Thanks for looking.

Very nice jack Joe ... Nice blades and celluloid which I am guessing is faux tortoise looks to be in excellent condition... nice score!!

Thanks buddy.

Very nice Joe.

Another dandy buddy. Pretty

Thank you, Roger and Lyle.

Very nice old Challenge Joe, they sure made some great knives.

Nice find, Joe! Lovely tortoise shell celluloid.

Thank you, John and Dan.

I do like these covers.

Picked up this Challenge Cutlery Corp split spring stag wharncliffe whittler, 3 9/16" with full blades. The stag has aged with a beautiful warm glow to it. It has suffered from some age corrosion with the main blade tang stamp worn but the secondary blade stamps are like new.
I think this pattern is a traditional Sheffield pattern which would make sense as many of the Challenge cutlers came from Sheffield.

Beautiful John!

Very, very nice John. Glad you scooped that one up. Your pictures are a lot better then the sellers and the knife looks even better. Are the liners milled? Can you take a pic of the back spring?

Thanks guys, appreciate the comments.

James. the liners are not milled, the knife is far from perfect as it has suffered some from corrosion which I could see from the sellers poor pics, at least it wasn't over cleaned, there is also a tight crack in the stag on the pile side that you can't see except from the photo. The blades are tight and very snappy and appear to be full with the pen blades maybe having some original finish.

I don't know why the seller does not take better or at least more pictures as he does have desirable knives and trys for top money, better pics would help, he did take what I thought was a reasonable offer for this knife.

Pic of the back springs, can see how slim the split spring shim is,

That’s a beauty John ... Lots of American cutleries made Wharncliffe pens and whittlers but the stag on your knife is no doubt reminiscent of Sheffield - the few examples of stag used in American cutleries from the few I have seen are similar with that dark gnarly look but stag on old American Knives is not that common (at least based on my experience). I think the “Corp” in the stamp was used in the 1900s - at least what I found once when looking for dating the use of Corp rather than Co was early 1900s up until the close of Challenge in the 1920s... Also glad to hear that seller accepted a reasonable offer - my prior experience with him a few years back found him very resistant despite his having an Offer bid - like you said he does have some really nice & desirable knives but his prices as BINs are often absurd in my opinion, and there was a time in his descriptions where he would note “don’t lowball” me ....

Great looking "true" wharncliffe model JohnR.

Mason wrote:Great looking "true" wharncliffe model JohnR.

I thought about that one too John. Like I said before, from what I’ve seen, Empire used dark looking stag, as Lee states other US makers did, but not “pressed stag “. I’m Grin’n

John, here is one pic from a book I have called “Sheffield exhibition Knives” it is a great book that I never get tired of looking at. This is one of the most common pattern through out the book. I highly recommend it. Your challenge knife is a very significant piece in my opinion.

JAMESC41001 wrote:John, here is one pic from a book I have called “Sheffield exhibition Knives” it is a great book that I never get tired of looking at. This is one of the most common pattern through out the book. I highly recommend it. Your challenge knife is a very significant piece in my opinion. 0249E1CC-E66B-4BDF-BFE0-D8CA6A4A1901.jpeg

Wow that is a great looking whittler. Wish some one would bring that back.

I just picked this up today. Just a bit under 3-1/2” long
Challenge Cutlery Corp. tangs also stamped Stainless Steel. So a few questions. Is this from the 20’s what do you think the handle material is. I am new to the knife game. So if these are stupid questions please forgive me.

Anyhow I will be giving this a nice cleaning and sharpening this coming week. Hope I did not over pay. $10 was that a fair price?

Bone handled,20's made.Challenge went out of business in 1928.Good buy for $10.

Ditto on Rogers’s info - nice knife and good price for sure ...

Good deal, thank you for the great information. I will just give it a little spit shine.

Tom

Here it is with a light cleaning. I did nothing to the blades, other than sharpen them. I did not try to remove the chips. Only get a smooth edge. They took a keen edge on my Arkansas stones.