All About Pocket Knives

Hello,
I have a 1981 "Tenn Riverboat Trapper". It is a mini trapper with pearl handles.
From a couple of books I see there were a hundred made and it's mentioned they have
genuine river pearl handles.
Now, what I can't find is why it is stamped as a 6207 SP SSP and not 8207.
And, what is genuine river pearl?

Thanks in advance for any info

As far as the numbering issue, your guess is as good as mine. River pearl comes from freshwater mussels (as opposed to saltwater oysters, etc). The pearls are usually farm produced in the US, Japan and currently mostly China. The river pearl for knife handles comes from the shell of a fresh water mussel.

A fresh water mussel had crossed my mind, but I could only picture ones too small to make anything.
Never thought of farm raised.
Thanks for that.

Are you sure it's a regular Case issue not a after market that someone rehandled ?

I am sure. Check: W.R. Case & Sons Knives by Sargent and Schleyer
and American Premium Guide to Knives and Razors by Jim Sargent.
My father bought this knife new.

According to this site, Tennessee River Pearl is the "state gemstone of Tennessee":
https://statesymbolsusa.org/symbol-offi ... iver-pearl

I will bet that Case reserved 8xxx for mother of pearl, and they don't consider river pearl to MOP. Does seem kind of dumb - I would think a river pearl would be closer to MOP than to bone & synthetic.

The Case numbering system is pretty silly - it was clearly created without thinking very far into the future. Of course, it's still better than just about every other knife maker - but that bar is very, very low...

Case knife maker: "Should we devote two digits of the number to handle material?"

Case marketing dweeb: "Nah, we're going to have bone, stag & wood and that's it. We'll never need more than that."

That theory makes good sense!
SInce it was a limited run, why go to a lot of trouble making another stamping
for something they may not use again.

Thank you