All About Pocket Knives

Posted this earlier in the General Discussion forum but figured I'd post it over here as well. Bought this locally at a street fair today in town for $5. What I find unusual about it is that it ever made it out of the factory.Probably a "lunch box" knife.
The tang stamp has been partially ground away but not so much as to see that it is(was) a 9 dot Case 640045 R. also the shield has been removed by the same method;the bail has been cut off and the rear bolsters punch stamped very deeply to preclude polishing them out.
The reason for doing so is two fold:first the back springs were not thick enough to grind back and polish.Secondly; the can opener blade can only be opened by opening the other blades and then hooking under the opener and lifting up.The punch blade isn't quite as bad but still difficult to open.The master blade pivot pin has not been smoothed out either;still sporting it's waffle pattern from the setting punch.
As a collector of unusual(and not necessarily expensive)knives I consider this a pretty good score. I wonder jokingly if I could send it back to Case for a "tune up"? NAHH!

I'd guess it got a quick inspection by the hafter, he found the flaws and it went in the bucket of rejects. You would think destroying the knife or stripping it for parts would have been better than having it be seen by the public, but that's what makes it such a neat find.

Kind of like a knife version of someone born crippled and surviving against the odds. You just wish there was something you could do to fix it.___Dave

djknife13 wrote:Kind of like a knife version of someone born crippled and surviving against the odds. You just wish there was something you could do to fix it.___Dave

Actually I like it just the way it is. After so many years of collecting knives I find that my collecting mania turns toward unusual knives and not necessarily expensive ones. Finding knives that were never meant to see the light of day is one facet of this mania.
Two examples are the Camillus serpentine that has bad back springs and was never finished as attested by the waffle pattern on the pivot rivets.
The second id one that had me scratching my head. This knife came in a green leather knife purse and although the tang stamp was ground off and the action of the knife horrible they still saw fit to stamp the handles,"Compliments of the Colonial Knife Co." If I got one of these as a gift I would think twice about ever buying a Colonial knife.What were they thinking?
Somewhere around,I'm still looking for a picture of a four blade equal end pen that is stamped M.B.C.Co(on all four blades)which could either be Miller Brothers(likely)or Meridian Britannia Cutlery(unlikely but possible)that appears to have been a "skeleton" knife that never got a set of
handles.

knife7knut wrote:Actually I like it just the way it is. After so many years of collecting knives I find that my collecting mania turns toward unusual knives and not necessarily expensive ones. Finding knives that were never meant to see the light of day is one facet of this mania.

Some of my favorites fall into this category. Our friend Knifeaholic says that factory errors usually don't increase the value of a knife (and he's nearly always right), but I like the odd and unusual ones since they are usually unique (one of a kind). Nice example of the one that got away.

I bought a couple of unfinished Camillus 72s simply because they are unfinished. Probably in process when Camillus gasped it's last breath and expired. For me, they're part of the history of the company.

Nice score Jerry! While I'm happy for you, I wish I'd seen them first.