1960's Case XX Store Display

[nwdan]

Thought I'd post a pic of my Case XX Store Display and hoping that some might have info on it. Wondering how common or uncommon this is. Exterior condition is ok with normal wear, knives are like new. Also attached a pic of the inventory / model sheet which came with it. Most in the display appear to be mid 60's (1965-1969) knifes and some of the "newer" ones are Case XX U.S.A. 10 dot so 1970. My guess is if the store was out of a certain knife they would sell out of the display front and replace as inventory replenished. There are 29 knives, total of 32 items including the two sharpening stones and a hone. All items are numbered 1-32 with prices. The backside is numbered drawers where they stored the inventory. A local sporting goods shop was going out of business in the 1970's and my grandpa went in to pick up a knife or two on sale and left with the whole display. Hope you all like it, looking forward to your comments!

[treefarmer]

I do like it! Great story too. .
Treefarmer

[Mumbleypeg]

Nice find! Appears to be a number 35 Floor Display, probably one of the more popular displays Case offered dealers in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. There were different sizes of the number 35 display (Regular, Large, and Special) depending on the number of knives and size of the board. Case offered “standard” boards but dealers could also customize the board content for their display.

It was not common practice to sell knives off the display boards. At that time Case had traveling sales persons, either distributor reps or Case employees, who called on the retail dealers and took re-orders to replenish inventories. In my experience it is unusual to find a board having knives with a wide disparity of years. Most I’ve seen have knives from one or two consecutive years only. Later displays from after the early 70’s had mostly bone and Delrin, no stag knives.

However things began changing in the 70’s with the stag embargo, and discontinuance of some patterns. Dealers unable to replenish inventory began selling those patterns off the boards. Case offered replacement boards with currently available patterns but not all dealers replaced the boards. You can see on the inventory card from your display where the stag (5 prefix) pattern numbers have been over-written to change them to other numbers. Those may be some of the later year knives on your display.

Here for reference are some pictures of the number 35 display from Case catalogs, and a picture of a display I have.

Ken

[nwdan]

Ken, thank you so much for the information. That makes sense about the reps changing the patterns and the edits to the inventory sheet. Do you ever open up the display to do any maintenance to the knives?

[Mumbleypeg]

Not really. I’ve had it over 25 years but I’m scared to remove the knives lest I’m not able to put them back correctly, and don’t want to risk getting oil or anything on the board. There is no sign of rust or tarnish on the blades or bolsters but the knives with Delrin handles have that whitish “Delrin haze” on them, which could be easily remedied if I removed them. But I haven’t done so. I have re-glued the sharpening stones and oil can in their positions on the board, but gravity has had its way on them so they need it again.

I use the drawers in the back for storage and I do keep desiccant in the drawers. The display is in my office, out of sunlight.

Ken

[XX Case XX]

Ken makes a good point when he says he keeps his display case out of direct sunlight. Here's a photo of one of my knives that was in a Case display for many years. You can see the line where the wire was holding it up, and blocking it from the sun. Click on the photo to enlarge and you can get a good look.

___________
Mike

[nwdan]

Yes sure enough, thanks for the heads up. Mine is out of the sunlight as well but it was only by chance not because I knew better. Now I'll just make sure I keep it that way.

[stockman]

I always liked to find knives that had the wire marks on them. Also on some the wire would ware into the handle material, I liked this also. You would find slick black one quite often with little groves on the edge of the handle material.

Harold