All About Pocket Knives

How can I tell if a knife scales are Indian sambar stag? Thanks

I have collected knives for decades yet i cannot answer your question. I can make a guess and likely be right but i cannot describe what features to look for. I hope someone will post information about Sambar stag. People who re-handle knives have experience handling Sambar and maybe other stags.
kj

Henry, that is a great question but kj's comments are on point. I collect the German Bulldogs which mostly use European deer stag. But once in a while a Sambar will turn up. To me, the Sambar looks "richer" than the European or American stag. But that is subjective. Hopefully, as kj suggested, someone who has considerable experience with Sambar will come along with something more definitive.

The reason makers liked Sambar was because of the the very little pith. Many stags have nice features, but for a maker who wants their stag to stay put as knife handles, wants little pith as possible. It would be hard, if not possible to tell the difference, IMO.

I Hope I Did This Right. But Here Is A picture Of Some India Sambar Stag Knives I Have. Maybe You can Compare. Hope This Helps

Maria, those are some beautiful covers. Quite possibly the only way to be certain is when the maker/manufacturer identifies Sambar as such.

My goodness these deer are quite large! Up to 556 pounds.

henryrawski wrote:How can I tell if a knife scales are Indian sambar stag? Thanks

I did a test on this a few months ago, I posted pictures of different stag handles to see if folks could tell the difference and no one got them all correct. About the only stag that I can usually pick out is European stag, but some of those pictures posted in this thread have that European stag look, especially the stag in the middle. So even that makes me less sure of my own judgment when it comes to stag.
Question for all: if we can’t tell the difference between stag handles, why would we pay more for Sambar over other stag handles? Maybe knife makers should charge based on the appearance of the stag? More for the nicest and less for the less desirable pieces.
SSk

Surprising that someone hasn't attempted to introduce those into the U.S.

Surely, we have an environment/climate in which they would thrive.

Charlie

I Agree Quicksteel!! Glad GEC Did.

RobesonsRme.com wrote:Surprising that someone hasn't attempted to introduce those into the U.S. Surely, we have an environment/climate in which they would thrive. Charlie

Good point. Texas has a lot of exotic species. Don't even have to shoot the Sambar deer to make money; just pick up the sheds for years on end. When the buck (bull?) dies of old age take him over to McDonalds (their hamburger is dairy Holstein culls, as I understand it).

I think it is a great question - like many I couldn't define it as a definite in an ID... I always assumed and probably wrongly that many of the stag knives from Sheffield , at least in latter half of 1800s, was Sambar Stag... IMO it seems like Sambar is very gnarly and rich in color - but importantly like other natural materials I am guessing not all Sambar Stag is the same which complicates definite ID without knowing the background. It makes sense that Sheffield had access given the role of the British Empire in India at one time.. I see much less stag in old American knives though no doubt there are examples. In fact this is the handle of a LF&C (New Britain CT) late 1800s Bowie Hunter - note the photo of the side view of handle and how thick the stag is - probably less pith as alluded to above - maybe Sambar Stag? Either way a good discussion - often we discuss what is Rogers Bone but don't remember a thread on what is Sambar Stag (There is a thread on old gnarly stag knives under Knife Lore and will take a look over there to see if there is any info viewtopic.php?f=35&t=22550&hilit=gnarly+stag)

Lee, that is quite the knife and top notch stag as well
Greg, from those pictures Sambar deer must be related rather closely to North American elk and European red deer. Body features and pattern of rack is similar in all 3.
Elk antler has ++ pith and so is not preferred for knife handles. Opposite to Sambar stag, but they gotta be related.
kj

Could this be Sambar? It might explain alot. I got 2 of these at the Eugene knife show ( I gave one away) for next to nothing. Everybody who's seen them -except for the guy that sold them to me- thinks they're pretty cool. One guy said they were patterned like a Sikh (sp?) knife but they were made in America because of the stag handles. I wasn't so sure. Then I saw this thread, hmmm. The handles are thick, the whole knife weighs nearly a pound, but there is very little pith. I tried to show it in one pic but the focus is on my fingers. anyway what do you think? Thanks
Bruce

As to the original poster's question about telling whether the handles are,"Sambar" stag ;I think it is similar to trying to determine where a pearl handled knife's handles came from by looking at the colors(or lack thereof) in them or where an elephant ivory handle originated.
If you were looking at pre-1900(or thereabouts)English knives you would probably be correct in assuming that the stag originated in India due to it being one of the British colonies and having companies there shipping goods to England.
If you were looking at early German or Austrian(or any of the Balkan countries)of the same era you might conclude that the handles were from red deer that were prevalent in those areas.
And if you were looking at early American made knives and they had stag handles you might conclude they were made from elk or other large antlered animals peculiar to the region.
In today's world it is difficult to assess where the antlers on a production knife come from as most antlered animals are under some sort of protected status or whatever. I believe that is what led to the proliferation of knives handled in so-called,"second cut stag" which is essentially antler that has been ground smooth and jigged to resemble natural stag and even more so to synthetic stag which is about as real looking as I am to a movie star.
I noticed the term,"pith" being used here frequently. I have no idea what this means;could someone enlighten me please?
As to whether the material is genuine Sambar(or Sand Bar as some have termed it)or not;does it really make any difference?
Just my humble opinion folks;your mileage may vary..............

Pith is the softer core of the antler. Shows up as little dots. Sambar has a very dense core. On a pocket knife you are just using the edges anyway. The wider and thicker the scale the more the center comes into play. On a fixed blade knife with no pommel you can clearly see the center pith.

I'm not an expert in antlers, neither deer, elk or sambar stag, but I do use a fair amount of antler, mostly sambar stag in re-handling knives. As the availability of sambar stag decreases and the price increases, I ask questions of my suppliers. The answers I receive seem to be fairly consistent.

The highlights are as follows:

1- The government of India has permanently banned the sale and exportation of sambar deer antler some. The explanation I have received for this is that is is a matter of money. People pay big money to go to India, right on the back of an elephant and watch the tigers. We're talking big tourist dollars $$! People walking around in the tiger habitat picking up sambar deer sheds disturbs the tigers and the tens of millions of tourist dollars from the tiger watchers. Yes, the government of India does make money on the exportation of sambar stag however, the amount of money from the antlers is minuscule compared to the huge tourist dollars! Therefore the people who make their living harvesting the sandbar sheds are basically out of luck. Good luck finding a new line of work in an overcrowded nation.

2- Yes, sambar deer will grow in other parts of the world. I have seen guided hunting tours for sambar deer in New Zealand. However, I am told that the development of the antlers is greatly affected by nutrition/diet and minerals. The diet available to the sambar deer in the India is ideal for producing the best figured and straightest antlers.

3- I have also been told that the Indian government from time to time stops the exportation of sambar antler in order to raise the price. But I was assured by one supplier that this time it is different, there is far more money available in tiger tourism than in sambar antler exportation. We will never see sambar stag exported from India again, ever!

These are some of the assorted explanations I have received from various suppliers. Some of the explanation seemed plausible, some seem less plausible to me. I'm not sure exactly what the truth is in this matter. One thing I am sure of is that if the price of sambar stag continues to rise, (especially if it becomes completely unavailable), we will undoubtedly see the use of other types of antler. Elk antler does have considerably more pith on average than sambar stag on average, however modern stabilization techniques the only place that presents a problem is where the pith is seen on an end cut; for example slab handled fixed blade without a pommel

I will post some pictures shortly that show sambar antler and elk antler so you can see the difference between the thicknesses of the hard outside layer on both types of antler.

Here are a few sets of sambar stag handles cut in slabs for folders.
You can see the thick harder layer, in fact that's mostly what you see except on a couple of these slabs.
This is a round of elk antler. You can see the hard outer layer is much thinner on this piece of antler than it is on the sambar stag slabs.
The gray porous looking inside of the antler is what is commonly referred to as pith. You can see why that might cause a problem especially on a bare head jack or a slab handled fixed blade that has no pommel. I believe the pith can be filled through the stabilization process, but I'm not exactly sure how we could make it look more like bone or antler. In other words make it more appealing to the eye then this gray stuff!

Interesting posts, Dale. Thanks!

Great visual Dale.

Very informative. Thanks Dale.

I like the way Randall treats the end of some of their stag handles with a brass plate. It is very thin and is cut to match the veins in the antler. It must take some real skill.

Interesting info Dale ...

I’m curious but can you show the outside color and texture of the 6 handle slabs? I get this feeling that compared to 100 years or more ago the stag was different in color (maybe just age and handling was the reason) and the “gnarliness” was significantly more... Importantly this is my perception but I rarely see newer stag that has the attributes of that over a century ago on modern knives...

I’m thinking perhaps the depth of Sambar stag’s outer layer, before the pith is reached, is related to the trend toward thicker handle covers. Prior to the proliferation of Sambar stag that seemed to appear post-WWWII, most stag covers were thinner. In the 1960s and early 1970s, thick Sambar stag covers were commonplace and desirable among collectors.

I’m judging mostly from my experience with Case, who arguably has produced the most genuine stag knives and has been a prolific producer of Sambar stag knives. When others went to synthetic materials (“Plastag”, etc) Case continued to use genuine stag. So perhaps it’s just that I’ve seen more of them.

Ken

Mumbleypeg wrote:Case, who arguably has produced the most genuine stag knives and has been a prolific producer of Sambar stag knives.

Ken

And then hafted away much of the character from the handles on their knives.

I think the difference in stag thickness from vintage to present is based on hafting technique and consumer preference. In the 1970's-80's There was a "thick stag" phase in which marketers convinced buyers that thick stag was better as though they were buying salami by the pound.
There is some amazing stag on vintage Sheffield knives up to about WW I. As far as i know what species of animal this old stag came from has not been determined.
In the 1600-1700's and maybe more recently, huge racks were discovered, preserved in bogs in Britain. These had come from an extinct species of giant Red Deer.
I wonder if any of these were used for knife handles ?
kj