All About Pocket Knives

I have three knives, two for sure are case...the one yellow handle one is my mystery knife. BTW I will be posting these knives open in the next post so you can read all the stamps....anyway the yellow one has a stamp that says...and I'll put it in the form that it is printed...LLBean.Inc
Freeport.Me.
It looks to me very close to a case Trapper and has the oval plate on the handle like a case....But I'm pretty sure LL Bean never made their own pocket knives....I think another company made them for them.

BTW I just got on this form about an hour ago so I'm brand new here...I hope I did the picture thing ok and the pic shows up.....Here goes

Great the pic showed up.....I will now try to send the same knives while they are open and info on all three.

Ok, follow me on this...Top knife is a Hunter 5 1/4 over all length, Stamp on main blade is like this, CASE but half the double X's are covered up by the
chrome end....on the other side of that same blade is stamped...6254SAB XX

Middle knife...a Trapper 4" overall stamp is like this..... CASE
......... nine dots...On the spay blade it's stamped ..6254

USA
Then the yellow one is the ..LLBean one
any helpful info would be greatly appreciated by this newbe

I think I should have posted all these on the >>"Case knife collectors forum ...section

Can a moderator please transfer all this to that forum if you can...................Told ya I was new....not used to the forum yet...Thanks,,,Pete

I think some LL Bean knives were made by Kabar.

Bob

On the yellow handled Trapper I am doubtful that was made be Case. The rear bolster does not look right for a Case, for one thing. Agree that LL Bean probably had it made for them by someone, just not Case in my opinion.

On the 5 1/4" Folding Hunter, you have a knife made from 1940 - 1964 and it has what collectors refer to as the 'XX Frame.' That is often desirable. However, I think if you look on the back of that blade the pattern stamp will be 6265 SAB and not 6254 SAB.

Welcome to AAPK - glad to see you seem to have the picture posting figured out. I agree with what has been said about your knives. The knife marked LL Bean was not made by Case. Probably a Kabar, or maybe Utica or Camillus who both made a lot of contract knives.

One of the great things about this site is the Research section which can be accessed by clicking on it in the header at the top of this page. There you’ll find a lot of information about several brands including Case, how to determine the age of Case pocket knives, patterns and their most common collector names, etc.

Ken

I'm pretty sure it's a KA-BAR. I've had and have quite a few. J.O'.

The yellow trapper was made by Western - fairly common older LL Bean knife. If you compare it to a Western trapper you will see that the tooling matches perfectly.

Hardman,
You are exactly correct on my hunter number....As you can see I confused the two numbers on the Trapper and the Hunter....The Trapper is 6254 and the Hunter is 6265....Thank you for catching that...

I want to thank all you guys for the info....I'll have to look up a Western Trapper....

Knifeaholic
You are 100% correct I believe....I found this pic of the Western Trapper but couldn't find one with the Yellow handles....As you can see it matches mine exactly...Even the oval is up close to the front pin like mine....You guys on this forum are the most knowledgeable about knives I've ever seen...
BTW I'm 79 and one of my older brothers gave me that knife back in the 60's....I was about 24 yrs. old....he has since passed and I never tried to research it til now..finally I found out. I wish I would have found out while he was still alive...

Welcome to AAPK!

I am glad that you found the pedigree of your knife.
Western is another company that made great knives, yet the company itself went out of business.
I am glad that you have it to honor your brother.

Thanks for posting pictures and sharing with us!

Petejc wrote: ↑Tue May 16, 2023 9:11 pm I have three knives, two for sure are case...the one yellow handle one is my mystery knife. BTW I will be posting these knives open in the next post so you can read all the stamps....anyway the yellow one has a stamp that says...and I'll put it in the form that it is printed...LLBean.Inc
Freeport.Me.
It looks to me very close to a case Trapper and has the oval plate on the handle like a case....But I'm pretty sure LL Bean never made their own pocket knives....I think another company made them for them.

BTW I just got on this form about an hour ago so I'm brand new here...I hope I did the picture thing ok and the pic shows up.....Here goes

where to get these knives? Any wholesale seller please

Giddy up!!

tvic wrote: ↑Sun Jun 04, 2023 10:11 pmGiddy up!!

Wow, very nice. Are these bone scales?

tomasf wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 12:52 pm

tvic wrote: ↑Sun Jun 04, 2023 10:11 pmGiddy up!!

Wow, very nice. Are these bone scales?

Yep, it’s called Antique Bone.