All About Pocket Knives

Case "New Grind" or "Shoulderless Grind" knives were only made for three years: 1983-84-85. This listing on eBay is interesting. While the blade does have that "new grind" kind of look, the seller says it's an 87 Case.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Case-xx-Knife- ... 6016.l4276

I don't think this is a true new grind blade. Any thoughts on this?

__________
Mike

Mike,
I think the Knife has 7 dots, and with the lightning ss, that would date it as a 1983 Knife. And so should be a correct year for the New Grind style. donjr

donjr wrote:Mike,
I think the Knife has 7 dots, and with the lightning ss, that would date it as a 1983 Knife. And so should be a correct year for the New Grind style. donjr

Correct. It’s a 1983 knife.

Ken

Ding-Ding-Ding ____we have a winner 1983 for sure

Okay, I'm stupid... It's official.

Mike

No Mike you are not stupid! We all, (or I sure have!!!!), fallen victim to the Case add a dot, take away a dot, dating system. donjr

Gentlemen
Can somebody tell me why the 'new grind' was instituted in '83 to begin with? Was it to strengthen the blade at the tang? A style choice?
And then why was it discontinued? Cost? Market resistance?
I remember hearing that it was a Parker era decision. But in '83 I was too broke to care about buying knives, I was rolling pennies to buy gas and pinto beans back then.
Many thanks!
Keith

Supposedly the new grind is stronger and represented an engineering advancement in knife blade structural design. However, customer acceptance of the change was not good. (Remember “New Coke”? ). So they dropped it and went back to the old grind.

That’s my understanding of it anyway.

Ken

Ken
I believe that is correct. It was thought that the grind at 90 degrees to the centerline of the blade at the tang plus the 90 degree angle at the corner of the grind were a stress risers and this is true. A smooth transition in thickness, angles,etc pose a more benign stress problem. It is a problem to design around for materials that bear a load, constant or intermittent. Knife blades, if used properly shouldn't be effected.

And the Carhartt knives were doing a version of the New Grind while they were in production..
John

Thanks for the info!
Keith

Mumbleypeg wrote:Supposedly the new grind is stronger and represented an engineering advancement in knife blade structural design. However, customer acceptance of the change was not good. (Remember “New Coke”? ). So they dropped it and went back to the old grind.

That’s my understanding of it anyway.

Ken

That's essentially the version I read once in a knife publication (can't remember which or when). However, a subtle distinction in the version I recall reading is that while the new grind did, in fact, make the blade structurally stronger (albeit negligibly for most knife users to notice or care), it was also more expensive to manufacture which naturally resulted in a corresponding rise in the retail cost of Case knives during that time period...which was what the customers really objected to--not the design itself, but the increased knife prices.

Ironically, since the new grind knives were only made for a few years, there were fewer overall numbers produced, thus making them more and more scarce over time. A basic tenet of economics which is particularly true in the world of collecting (anything), scarcity generally creates higher demand. Personally, as a collector, I love the graceful elegance of the new grind design as compared to the traditional perpendicular shoulder grind. But that's a purely aesthetic value that has nothing to do with the functionality of the knife. I doubt the vast majority of Case knife users ever use a given Case knife in such a way that the structural integrity of the shoulder grind is ever even a factor. How many broken blades have you ever seen that broke due to a too-weak shoulder grind (assuming, of course, that the knife was used properly...not as a pry bar or something)?

BTW...take a close look at the Case/Tony Bose collaboration knives and you'll notice that the shoulder grind is somewhere in-between a new grind and a traditional grind (although, still closer to the traditional grind, IMHO).

~Q~