All About Pocket Knives

This early press button looks to have spent a life time in someone’s pocket .
Wish I new its history

I've got this old Case that is pocketworn, but not by me.

Some of my pocket worn.
Henry Sears & Son Cattaraugus Cattle knife Ulster Cattle knife Cattaraugus Gunstock Jack Bridge Stockman Paxton & Gallagher Whittler Miller Bros Whittler

Buster Brown Union

Seriously beaten and bashed Premium Stock Knife, made in Italy.
I love this knife. I wish I could say I was the one that wore it out but it only came along a year or so ago. Anyway, I think it’s a bit older than I am! It’s still a very serviceable knife. I originally got it for a work knife until I started looking it up and found out that it was older than I thought. Now my work knife is a plastic handled Chinese workhorse.

Case XX era Barlow that the saw cut has worn smooth and the color has lightened.

Here are two Keen Kutter knives that I sold earlier this year. Both had the nicest and smoothest handles on a knife I ever had. Both of these knives had 40 to 50 years of wear on them. Hard to replicate that w/ anything but actual use.
SSk

Here’s o e of mine, not my wear but I think it fits this thread.

Kingston73 wrote:Here’s o e of mine, not my wear but I think it fits this thread.

Certainly does! Someone liked that one a lot.

Here's a rare pattern that someone (not me) carried a lot.

Ken

Ok, no gentle smoothing, no soft elegance, no dignity whatsoever! This knife has had a very rough year!

It’s actually my everyday work knife. I bought it for a couple of bucks after I retired my Premium Stock. The pink tape is on all my work tools. Keeps those guys in metalshop from swiping ‘em! The clear tape is a probably futile effort to keep the plastic scales on. It’s been dropped off the top racks and generally beat to heck.

There’s no brand on it except “made in China”. Surprisingly, it’s sharpens up just fine on a dollar store stone. I use it for cutting straps and boxes. The boxes are almost a inch thick and I sometimes have to take off the top six inches on a 48”X48” box to get it under a rack. I also use it to score pressboard to snap it off.

If “pocketworn” means used and abused, it wins!

zoogirl wrote:image.jpgimage.jpgimage.jpg

Ok, no gentle smoothing, no soft elegance, no dignity whatsoever! This knife has had a very rough year!

It’s actually my everyday work knife. I bought it for a couple of bucks after I retired my Premium Stock. The pink tape is on all my work tools. Keeps those guys in metalshop from swiping ‘em! The clear tape is a probably futile effort to keep the plastic scales on. It’s been dropped off the top racks and generally beat to heck.

There’s no brand on it except “made in China”. Surprisingly, it’s sharpens up just fine on a dollar store stone. I use it for cutting straps and boxes. The boxes are almost a inch thick and I sometimes have to take off the top six inches on a 48”X48” box to get it under a rack. I also use it to score pressboard to snap it off.

If “pocketworn” means used and abused, it wins!

Zoogirl, I think that deserves a thread of it’s own called the “ugliest knife of the year”. In that thread there would be some stiff competition.
SSk

Mumbleypeg wrote:

Kingston73 wrote:Here’s o e of mine, not my wear but I think it fits this thread.

Certainly does! Someone liked that one a lot.
Cool Ken
Here's a rare pattern that someone (not me) carried a lot.

Ken

Don’t know if I’ve seen that one before Ken?

Here's an old Ulster Nkife Co. 4" farmers jack that shows the deeper (shadowy) lines remaining, that was made in the old pick bone style jigging.

Sharpnshinyknives wrote:

zoogirl wrote:image.jpgimage.jpgimage.jpg

Ok, no gentle smoothing, no soft elegance, no dignity whatsoever! This knife has had a very rough year!

It’s actually my everyday work knife. I bought it for a couple of bucks after I retired my Premium Stock. The pink tape is on all my work tools. Keeps those guys in metalshop from swiping ‘em! The clear tape is a probably futile effort to keep the plastic scales on. It’s been dropped off the top racks and generally beat to heck.

There’s no brand on it except “made in China”. Surprisingly, it’s sharpens up just fine on a dollar store stone. I use it for cutting straps and boxes. The boxes are almost a inch thick and I sometimes have to take off the top six inches on a 48”X48” box to get it under a rack. I also use it to score pressboard to snap it off.

If “pocketworn” means used and abused, it wins!

Zoogirl, I think that deserves a thread of it’s own called the “ugliest knife of the year”. In that thread there would be some stiff competition.
SSk

Excellent idea! I will go and do just that!

Below are pictures of another before & after illustration of pocket wear. The pattern is a Remington R3553 stockman. One of the examples is a pocket worn example and the other one is still pretty crisp, although it might have been carried some. I carry the pocket worn occasionally and it certainly feels comfortable in the hand and in the pocket. The bolsters also show smoothing and rounding on the pocket worn example, but I kinda believe that is more of a difference in manufacturing vs. pocket wear. I believe the pocket worn version is from the 1920's and the crisper example is from the 1930's. My rationale for this is the pocket worn example has the pattern number stamped while the crisp example does not. My guess is that if the crisp example did have a pattern number, it was inked on and has worn off. There are other subtle differences such as the length of nail nick. The nail nick on the pocket worn example is shorter than the crisp knife which is a manufacturing difference not the result of pocket wear.

Another observation is the pocket worn knife is crazy sharp on all the blades while the other one is not sharp at all. Whoever sharpened the pocket worn knife was a master because even though you will observe significant blade loss in the height of the main clip blade, there is almost imperceptible loss in the length of the blade as shown in the top-down view. The tips of clip blades for both knives land in almost the same position with respect to the bolster line.

Zoogirl’s pink-tape Chinese knife, disreputable-looking as it is, still has a good story behind it. It is nice to hear what a particular knife does for an occupation. A lot of fancy knives shirk real work.

RalphAlsip’s study of the two ostensibly identical-issue Remington Stockmans is enlightening, too. It raises some valuable points about manufacturing differences existing between quality knives, even when a maker’s pattern number is the same, in this case the R3553. Also, that is a very interesting observation about a previous owner skillfully maintaining the knife’s blade length, despite the obvious evidence of sharpening. If only we could have known that previous owner.