All About Pocket Knives

Just picked up a couple case Knives at a flea market, hoping for more information such as date and an idea of value. Any information would be much appreciated!!

You can get the date ranges here: http://www.wrcase.com/case_college/tang_stamps/

The "Case's Stainless" indicates 1916-1920. The other has 9 dots, which on that stamp indicates 1971.

The 1971 knife is pattern 62048 SP, which is called a "slimline trapper". The other is not a pattern I'm familiar with. It looks sort of like a "melon tester", but I haven't seen one of those with 2 blades. I'm sure someone else will be able to provide more information.

I will say this: Those are awesome flea market finds. My flea market never has ANYTHING close to these. I've never even seen a Case knife, let alone one from 1916-20.

Welcome to AAPK! The 62048 slimline trapper is not a particular rare pattern and yours has some serious condition issues. Hope you didn't pay a lot for it. Even if you did you may have made it up on the other knife, which is a pattern 6296X "Citrus Knife".

The 6296X is not too common. It was made for a niche market so probably not a lot were sold, hence there's not many around. Similar variations of the Case's Stainless tang stamp were used over the years. But in those years Case only used stainless on a few patterns - the 6296X being one of them. I'm thinking the knife you have dates to the XX era, probably late 1940s to early 1950s, based on the bone handles on the knife. If in mint condition, with that stamp it would be a $600-$700 knife, maybe more. In the condition yours appears to be, probably worth $250, maybe more. JMO. Someone else may have more info. Maybe Steve Pfeifer will see this and comment.

Two nice flea market finds - the kind that keeps us looking!

Ken

Edit: on second look your 6296X may have green bone handles, in which case it would be older, pre-WWII. Which would increase its value. Some better pictures would help.

That is some pretty and classic green bone used on the handles of the 6296X citrus knife

Yes, that's green bone. Puts the knife into the pre-WWII "Tested" era, earlier than XX.

Ken

Should I be worried by the lack of tang stamps other than "Case's Stainless" on the main blade?

I wouldn't worry about that. Knives from the tested era often had no pattern number stamped on them.

Got another Case this one's a muskrat, unfortunately it appears someone made their own scales (badly).

I've never seen a Case knife with "Muskrat" stamped on a blade tang. There's no telling what might have been done to that knife.

TwoFlowersLuggage wrote:I've never seen a Case knife with "Muskrat" stamped on a blade tang. There's no telling what might have been done to that knife.

I would be more concerned if IT DID NOT have "MUSKRAT" stamped.

From my experience most if not all Case Muskrats have Muskrat stamped on the blade. Case simply uses the word Muskrat to describe this pattern rather than pattern numbers. I am sure that there are exceptions, but having Muskrat on the blade seems more like the rule rather than the exception for Case knives.

npeters3 wrote:From my experience most if not all Case Muskrats have Muskrat stamped on the blade. Case simply uses the word Muskrat to describe this pattern rather than pattern numbers. I am sure that there are exceptions, but having Muskrat on the blade seems more like the rule rather than the exception for Case knives.

From the XX era onward, all Case muskrats will have MUSKRAT on one blade tang. The word MUSKRAT is actually the pattern number for the knife.

Well, I'll be darned. Can you tell that I don't own any Case Muskrats?

Jcgk1123 wrote:Got another Case this one's a muskrat, unfortunately it appears someone made their own scales (badly).15203138419732006377659.jpg15203138561742108180084.jpg

i have never seen a knife with handles made of JB-weld before... thats one of a kind

I would see Jim Giles often at a local flea market many years ago and we would talk knives.I actually bought the knife rolled up inside the paper work from another man at the flea market.Jim confirmed it was his at one time. I believe the knife was in a fire, the bone was charred a little,and the blade was discolored and a backspring was broken.

That is pretty cool!!!