All About Pocket Knives

thats a great old Challenge . a lot of them are missing swing guards by now

And another one comes slidin off the ol conveyor belt of financial missgivings.

Aw, but it's a duuuuzy.

And instantly one of my favorites. 3 1/2", with half stops, and brass liners. I'm giddy!
Now lets see.........where did I put that stone.............

Joe glad to see you got another nice CT. made beauty.

Thanks Paul,
it really is a great knife.
Actually one of my favorites now.

Here's my only Challenge. Appears to have brass bolsters. Slim.

A Scout that I just got off Ebay

What a great knife that is Tom. Beautiful covers!

Thanks Joe. I'm eager to get it in hand and try to better read the stamp.

Tom,

I never seen that style can opener blade on an old Challenge scout knife

After doing a little checking around I found this thread http://www.knifeforums.com/forums/showt ... id/865112/ and you are right about the can opener. BRL says NEVER a safety can opener, and it makes sense, since Challenge went out of business in 1928-ish. K7K also had a concern about the "R" stamped on the back of the tang. I've seen that before but can't remember where. I'll have to check around.

Dimitri, you never cease to amaze me with your knowledge of old knives. Between you and K7K you probably have all the answers. Thanks to both of you.

slimpickins wrote:Here's my only Challenge. Appears to have brass bolsters. Slim.

Hey Slim - I have a Challenge with what appears to be brass bolsters. I believe though that they are nickel-silver with a high copper content. Either way it is a very nice knife.

tjmurphy wrote:After doing a little checking around I found this thread http://www.knifeforums.com/forums/showt ... id/865112/ and you are right about the can opener. BRL says NEVER a safety can opener, and it makes sense, since Challenge went out of business in 1928-ish. K7K also had a concern about the "R" stamped on the back of the tang. I've seen that before but can't remember where. I'll have to check around.

Dimitri, you never cease to amaze me with your knowledge of old knives. Between you and K7K you probably have all the answers. Thanks to both of you.

Tell ya the truth? The can opener made me decide not to bid on that one. I figure the original opener got messed up somewhere along the line and got replaced. I'd be willing to bet it will make a damn fine EDC.

As for the "R" on the blade? I bought one a while back that had an "R" ( albeit crudely) on the blades. I sent it back to the seller because it had been messed with and poorly done at that.

tjmurphy wrote:Dimitri, you never cease to amaze me with your knowledge of old knives. Between you and K7K you probably have all the answers. Thanks to both of you.

Thanks Tom

I don`t think I will ever have all the answers, but I have a few

As far as the "R" stamped on the back of the blade, I have seen this before on Challenge knives along with an upside down "U". I have also see a letter "S" on other brands like Schrade and Camillus, to name a few.

My theory is that this stamping denotes a knife with Stainless Steel blades. As all the examples I have seen had all Stainless Steel blades.

Now just to add more confusion, I just dragged my stainless Challenge out.

GUESS WHAT?

The main blade is lightly etched with "STAINLESS". There is no marking on the back side of the blade.

The main blade is the only blade marked on this knife. It has the arched CHALLENGE over CUTL CO over Bridgeport

Here's an old stockman. It has big swedges and very thin pulls and nail nicks. Been used a bunch, still has good snap on all the blades.








Check out the stamp on the main blade..

Looks like they hit it, ground it and hit it again or maybe they started with too big a stamp.

Rest of the tang stamps. All three blades marked.

Willie, what have you done to your pictures? They're HUGE At least on my machine.

Thanks TJ for the info. Looking at it closer it doesn't appear to be solid brass. I have a German made whittler that appears to be brass but only in certain light., or I'm going blind.Slim.

tjmurphy wrote:Willie, what have you done to your pictures? They're HUGE At least on my machine.

That top pic is 1024X327.

What size screen resolution are you running?

I resized those pics down and loaded 'em on photobucket which cuts 'em down some more.

Owd Wullie wrote:

tjmurphy wrote:Willie, what have you done to your pictures? They're HUGE At least on my machine.

That top pic is 1024X327.

What size screen resolution are you running?

I resized those pics down and loaded 'em on photobucket which cuts 'em down some more.

I don't know. Where do I find that information?

Anudder one







TJ, to find out what your screen resolution is, go to your "desktop", right click in an empty space away from any icons, select PROPERTIES, and then click on the various tabs at the top of the dialogue box until you find one that says "SETTINGS". Should be a slider bar that will enable you to change it. I've no idea what size monitor you are running but it won't let you make the resolution any bigger than what your monitor will handle. The higher in numbers that you go, the smaller the icons on your desktop will appear. Usually 1024 X 768 is optimal for most web pages.

I'm running 1680 X 1050 on this 22" flat screen.

Dragged these old Challenge jacks out of storage today to take a picture. The celluloid teardrop jack was the first expensive vintage knife I ever bought. The multi colored handle knife has what I have seen called "bubble gum" handles, I'm not sure if it's celluloid or bakelite. The wooden jack on top is my favorite, it has a nice clear etch:

Great lookin jacks msteele!

I've got almost the twin brother to that top one and EDC it quite a bit.

The mail lady brought this to us on Friday. I thought maybe it might spark some more Challenge's to be posted?

Nice fishtail

I have only one that had seen a lot of use. An EO with long pull on the main blade, iron bolsters and fine looking bone. The main blade obviously re-profiled, but still its great old knife.





Some fine looking knives on this thread.

Mike