Case. Definitely Case. And I prefer the trapper.
Several years ago, I packed in supplies to an old guy, his brother, and his grandson, who had backpacked into the Trinity Alps Wilderness Area of Northern California. They'd been up there for almost a week and planned on staying there for several more days and were running a little low on grub. We'd made previous arrangements for me to take the pack string back in there to re-supply them about halfway through their trip.
Around the campfire that night, the old guy noticed the relatively small, 3½-inch blade sheath knife I had on the belt. He looked at it, admired the edge, and then we started talking about quality of steel. We found that we both appreciated good knives with good quality steel.
He asked if I had any Case knives. I told him that I wasn't impressed with Case anymore since they started cheapening the quality back in the 60's. He explained that they were under new ownership (Zippo lighters), and they had brought all their old metallurgists out of retirement in order to start making great knives again. He then explained that he was a distributor for Case and he'd get me any knife I wanted at his price to try.
I took him up on the offer. He sent me a large trapper with some nice high-carbon steel blades. And I've been hooked ever since. Oh, I own other brands, i.e. Boker, Buck, Puma, Swiss Army, Kershaw....but my everyday carry is always a Case trapper.
