All About Pocket Knives

I'm sure this e-bay seller is not trying to cheat anyone but come on.

http://cgi.ebay.com/CASE-BROS-VINTAGE-1 ... dZViewItem

I too found this to be of great interest. "remember, you must verbally take this knife apart" to determine if it is the real thing. Do that and list your reasons and then we all can learn why and how. A great way to help others. Welcome, class is in session.

Welcome Knifebros,

Pa, If I were going to take the knife in question apart....verbally or physically...I'd start by removing those "NEW" brass pins holding this thing together. To me the pins look too new.


I haven't been feeling too good lately folks....had my colonoscopy today no fun at all.

later,
Keith J.

I have been looking at the pics for awhile and don't really know what is going on with this knife. The pins don't look new to me they have some green on them. The blade pin looks old to me also. I think one of the blades was broken years ago and replaced with what they had to make a useable knife. Stockman

stockman wrote:I have been looking at the pics for awhile and don't really know what is going on with this knife. The pins don't look new to me they have some green on them. The blade pin looks old to me also. I think one of the blades was broken years ago and replaced with what they had to make a useable knife. Stockman

I tend to agree...the basic knife appears to be an authentic Case Brothers jack.

Gang,

If you look at Goins book on knives, it says that both of these companies were in business at the same time. Although E C Simmons, the company that owned Keen Cutter was from St. Louis and of course Case Bros was from Little Valley NY. Simmons was owner of several large companies like Walden at one time and also involved with Winchester. It seems unlikely to me that they would have needed CASE Bros product when they had their own manufacturers. Remember in the early years CASE Bros was only a jobber using Platt's made knives.

In my years of collecting I have never seen a combination like this and that tells me a lot on its own. The only real way to tell would be a close hands on examination, but I would have to say that it was probably changed over years ago by some old timer who just needed a knife and wasn't concerned if I would like to add it to my collection 100 years later. The knife itself is genuine, the second blade is not original to the knife in my opinion.

If I am not mistaken, Case Brothers, L.V.N.Y. was formed in 1896. Case Brothers Cutlery formed by Jean, John, and Andrew Case in 1900. J. Russell Case formed W.R. Case and Son Cutlery Company in Little Valley, NY. in 1902. The newly formed W. R. Case & Sons Cutlery company of Bradford, PA purchased C. Platt's Sons Cutlery of Eldred, PA from Harvey N. Platts in 1905. Harvey N. Platts became Secretary and Superintendent of the factory. John Russell Case and Harvey N. Platts were brothers-in-law and worked together for years. In 1908, Case Manufacturing Co. was founded by J.D. and Andrew Case in Kane, Pa. In 1911, they closed the Kane plant, and opened in Warren, Pa. and Little Valley, NY. They sold out to W.R. Case & Sons of Braford, Pa. that same year.

Case history is pretty well documented, and while some incarnation of the company did coincide with the E.C. Simmons company's use of that particular KK logo, I don't think it was the Little Valley N.Y. one. Someone from the THHCK organization could probably date the KK logo fairly close. I agree that it is likely a replacement blade.

Codger

My read of this knife is as follows
1. The main blade stamping looks to be the real McCoy
2. The handle material fits the time period and knife style.
3. The blade pin does not look like it has been tampered with (for a long time)
4. the knife has not been cleaned excessively
5. and it is not represented to be a true rare one off factory screw up

however
1 keen kutter had no manufacturing partnership with case that I am aware of.
2 if there were knives produced like this, I am sure one would have surfaced long ago.
3 although no one has every type of knife ever produced by every maker for all of time documented, I believe from experience that this knife is like PA Knives stated some old timer many years ago repaired a personal carry knife to make it useful. If this knife sells for a reasonable price it would make a wonderful conversation piece but I do not believe it to be the real deal.

Nice job gang,

Case Bros actaully was started earlier than 1896, that is when they started some manufacturing, prior to that it was strickly as jobbers via the Cattaraugus company of the same town.

Kiferbros, you did a perfect job of evaluating that knife and Codger_64 is well informed about CASE history no doubt.

I would have to say that the verdict is that it isn't an orginal as presented but has had a Keen Kutter blade installed on it many years ago. A piece of history but not a factual one. On a side note, I learned that all of the blades on the old Keen Kutters were stamped. Therefore this makes sense that a smaller secondary blade had a stamping on it. It one was going to fake this knife. It would have been been better to grind the Keen Kutter stamp off and claim it to be fully a CASE Bros knife. This would have required much closer look to determine as the pins and bolsters don't send the message very clearly from the photo's that any work has been done to it. You would have had to check the possiblity of grinding and fit to determine that. If the grinding had been done years ago it would have probably had the right patinia by now that you may have had a hard time picking up on it. Again, all the more reason to sumize that it was added by an old timer looking to use it rather than cheat someone.



Hope this little lesson helps those that are learning as to what is meant by verbally taking the knife apart and reading it.