All About Pocket Knives

this question is for all of the non asian knife buyers. say if in a few years case or hen and rooster or whoever went out of business and were bought out or either were forced to make their knives in asia. and say this happens to all the american and other non asian companies. would all of you dedicated case, bulldog, hen and rooster etc buyers continue to buy their knives or stop collecting new knives all together?

I would just collect the old ones. I don't like the Bulldog line for 2006, I think the quality stinks and the knives are more cheaply made, so, I don't collect any of the 2006 knives even thogh they are German made Bulldogs. The ONE exception is that I have bought some Barlows that are 2006 that I will modify or put new handles on. I think that the Barlow is the only decent knife they have in the line up. Don't let them fool you with the 1 of 20, they have about 40 different celluloids that are 1 0f 20. A Barlow is to simple to screw up, at least the way these are made.

do you think that might really happen one day when all the non asian knife companies go out of business? i mean all of them? and then the only good things left will be old stuff. not that old is bad, but if that happened i guess all the old american knives would go up tremendously in value.

I think there will always be a demand for quality, just as there are people who would not know a quality knife when they saw one. I think the quality of Case knives is not what it used to be either. I do like Canal Street Cutlery and Schatt and Morgan to name a couple good ones, amongst others. I do have quite a few Canal Street Cutlery knives including a set of the first years production all with matching serial numbers.
I have also just set up a shop and I am practicing to make my own knives. I just started out, I bought some blades to put handles on and have about 20 Rough Rider to practice on. If I screw up a Rough Rider, no great loss, I can trash it with no hard feelings or sense of loss.

I'm a "relative" newcomer to the hobby, haven't really been a collector all
that long, but I agree 100% with Hukk. Even if your scenario were to
come about, I believe there'd still be quite a large number of Case, S&Ms
and other such knives available for quite a long time. I think those of us who share this viewpoint would undoubtedly continue buying up the remaining USA knives that were available, and then (if we hadn't already)
start collecting these companies' older models. Unless I'm totally wrong,
I believe that's what's going on to some extent currently with Schrade
knives. Those who collect them are buying up the remaining USA Schrade knives wherever they can find them...eBay, old hardware stores,
other collectors etc., etc. Maybe those Schrades will really have some
serious collector value someday. Anyway, those are just my thoughts.

I don't think I would ever buy a China Case. If a Case was made in China,
I would not consider it a Case. I only like the older Case knives 70's or older. My favorite is red bone.

Carl...I totally agree with you. My favorite Case knives are the red bones, also; especially the trappers and the stockmen. But ,a Case, to me, will always be an American knife. A Chinese Case would be a horribly intolerable aberration. My collection of Case knives, such as it is, consists of mainly 1990 - present knives...nothing from the 70's. I wish I had a few of those. I'll have to get to work on that!

Hukk...I have a question for you...In your opinion, what particular areas of the current Case knives leads you to believe that their quality is on
the downturn? As I mentioned above, I really have no older models to compare the new ones to. So to me, (and I'm relatively new at this, the
Cases all look pretty good. But you must be seing deficiencies that I'm not qualified to recognize...care to elaborate? It'd be an education for me. If you have the time, thanks...

cj

jabberwocky wrote:Hukk...I have a question for you...In your opinion, what particular areas of the current Case knives leads you to believe that their quality is on
the downturn? As I mentioned above, I really have no older models to compare the new ones to. So to me, (and I'm relatively new at this, the
Cases all look pretty good. But you must be seing deficiencies that I'm not qualified to recognize...care to elaborate? It'd be an education for me. If you have the time, thanks...
cj

I think you would find many long time collectors that feel the same way. There is a drop off since around 2000. They just don't seem to feel the same, some like Bulldog brand knives have spot welds where there used to be pins, don't know that one for Case yet. Case's drop off is not as dramatic as Bulldog's, but I think it has to do with cost cutting due to foreign (Chinese) competition. Because of China's use of raw materials, the raw materials for Case and the other companies has increased, thereby dropping profit margins, so, corners have been cut to maintain corporate profits. I have a couple dozen Case knives on a shelf in boxes above my desk, 1 a stockman from the early 90's snaps like a gator when it closes. Another stockman, from 2001, a 6375 closes like a limp noodle. The feel is completely different. The newer one does not feel as solid as the older one. Yes, I'm basing my opinion on a small sample, but I'm not real happy with what I see and feel. Most of the time, my hands will tell me much more than my eyes. I match them both up against some of my Canal Street Knives and the CS wins hands down. One Question, does anyone else see what I'm seeing? That they just don't feel the same. When I hold a knife in my hand, that tells me almost everything.

that's why i quit buying "new" case knives. poorly finished, dull, lifeless springs, thin bone and bolsters. there are exceptions of course, i have a couple but overall, very average. they can't be compared with any older case. so i'm looking for old ones i can afford and sating my habit with some of the other u.s. companies higher quality knives. ain't this fun

It books at $140.00

I got that from Volume 7. Volume 8, I hear is supposed to be out this month, Ed Henley and Buzz Parker for Bulldog knives. Who knows what they will do?