All About Pocket Knives

I received the latest catalog from Smokey Mountain Knife Works and I saw that Frost Cutlery is producing the Corelon knives for Case? Does anyone know anything about that? I just thought it was interesting.

i dont think they are "producing" the knives for CASE. I think Frost owns the Corlon part of it and is simply supplying the handle material. The knives are still CASE made. Thats the way i have it figured anyway

useem wrote:i dont think they are "producing" the knives for CASE. I think Frost owns the Corlon part of it and is simply supplying the handle material. The knives are still CASE made. Thats the way i have it figured anyway

Case hase recently changed the model numbering on the corelon knives, they start with a "9" now... I know Hen and Rooster use the material and think Frost owns them.

The corelon handled knives are manufactured by Case in Bradford Pa. The corelon handles are produced by Frost Cutlery who own the patent for the handle material. The corelon handled knives are a "licensed" Case product.
I think initially the corelon handled knives were assigned a different first number (3 perhaps?) but now Case has assigned the number 9 to these knives.

testcase is correct that Frost Cutlery Co. owns Hen and Rooster. They are producing tons of knives with the corelon handles.

Phil

100% agree with Phil

These days, Case Hase corelon knives begin with a "9" rather than an earlier number. From what I understand, both Hen and Rooster make use of the resources, and they believe that Frost owns them.
run 3

Despite what is stated here previously, Case has not produced anything ever with Corelon handle covers.

Although it has confused many, Corelon is a proprietary trade name owned by Frost. In the beginning of Frost Cutlery’s Corelon handled knives, Frost bought yellow handled Case knives (3 prefix pattern numbers), removed the yellow covers and replaced them with Corelon. Michael Prater did the work for Frost, and still does.

This situation was problematic because technically the re-handling voided Case’s warranty. Case Repair began receiving knives having Corelon covers from customers who thought the knives were Case products. The knives having Corelon covers had been modified “aftermarket”. The original pinned on yellow covers had been removed and replaced with glued on Corelon.

Case and Frost eventually reached an arrangement. Since then Frost buys fully assembled knives from Case but without handle covers. Which eliminated the need for an operation to remove the covers. Those knives do not have a 3 prefix pattern number. To my knowledge they have a 10 pattern number prefix. Michael Prater still does the work, which consists of mixing the Corelon acrylic and pouring it into handle covers, glueing those covers onto the assembled-without-covers knives, packing and labeling them into customized boxes for Frost. Frost distributes them through their network of retailers.

Case does not have Corelon handles. In fact if you search the Case web site for “Corelon” it finds nothing. Case makes knives having similar handle covers in-house at the Bradford PA factory, and calls the handle material “Kirinite”. A search for “Kirinite” on the Case web site will find knives having Kirinite covers.

An easy way to tell them apart? Case-made Kirinite covers are pinned. Frost’s Corelon covers are glued on and have no pins.

Ken