My Case Knives Are Pretty

[kwselke]

Nail nicks and slip joint knives make me cringe, yet I am attracted to them. That said, I have bought a few Case traditional style knives recently. The simple steels, blade geometry, and beautiful handles make me smile. I do have better (in my opinion) modern knives with superior steel, but these guys have style. In my opinion they are fun and pretty. They were also reasonably priced.

 

[white cloud]

Nice collection. I routinely carry a Spyderco Tasman Salt hawkbill and a very old swiss army knife. I keep trying to make a Case with bone handles replace one of these two as I really like the Case style. No luck yet.

 

[Texas Star]

I like your Copperlocks. I have one in red bone like in your photo.

My only other Case is a medium stockman in the same handle material. Workmanship on both is terrific.

 

[Texas Star]

Nice collection. I routinely carry a Spyderco Tasman Salt hawkbill and a very old swiss army knife. I keep trying to make a Case with bone handles replace one of these two as I really like the Case style. No luck yet.

I can't be any help, either. Every time I carry a stockman or trapper pattern, I need some tool that I'd have, had I carried a Swiss Army knife. (SAK)

I do wear a pouch on my belt for a larger, lockblade knife, usually a Benchmade Model 710, but it varies. But a pocket always holds a SAK. How old is yours, and which model?

My most carried is a Victorinox Spartan. But I have a SwissChamp in my briefcase. Lately, I've been carrying a Hunter model in a coat pocket if it's cold enough for a substantial jacket.

 

[BlackTalonJHP]

Nice collection but you need an Amber Bone Texas Jack. You are a Texan, right?

 

[Richard Simmons]

Very nice! I kinda prefer the long nail nicks.

 

[HOUSTON RICK]

You have a nice collection of useful Case knives. I like my recent Case Father's day gift, though it seldom leaves the vault, finally no ties or gift certificates!

 

[MCorps0311]

I really like your Case xx collection,congrats!

 

[Engieman]

I could not agree more, Case knives are pretty! However for everyday carry I really like a knife with a pocket clip. My current favorite is a Lionsteel KUR. Does everything I need, looks good and performs great as well.

Here are a couple of my favorite Case knives; a Gunstock Worm Groove and a Saddlehorn in mahogany. Beautiful ....

 

[kthom]

I'm a big fan of Case pocket knives, and you have some nice ones! I tend to like the smooth yellow and white bone scales. My granddad used to carry those from my earliest memory and I guess he marked me! But the ones I particulary like are what Case calls "Pocket Worn" with jigged bone scales, and I tend to favor the darker red colors on them. These slightly thinner and smoother knives just fit in my pockets without any problems at all for me. I am always found with a pocket knife in my pocket and a larger folder of some sort either with a pocket clip or riding in vertical or horizontal sheath on my belt. I've always been a sucker for a Case knife!

 

[kwselke]

I want to thank everyone for their nice words and add a few comments.

My Case knife collection is current production and dates back about a year at the oldest. I love their use of cow bone handle covers. I saw a You Tube review of a Case knife by a young man that could not figure out what jigged bone was. He said it is beautiful, it's plastic. No. Jigged plastic and jigged bone are two different things.

What I feel compelled to say is that my experience with other quality aspects of my Case knives was not all that great. Every one of the blades needed a sharpening. At best the blades came from the box with a toothy sharp edge. Both their C.V. and stainless blades will take a good edge, but in my experience Case knives do not come from the factory with sharp edges. The ones I have also came new in desperate need of lubrication.

I have the ability to sharpen and properly lubricate knives. I keep a lure box on my desk that I keep folding knives in that I am currently interested in carrying. Case knives have some spots in the box, but I have others I'd choose if I anticipated hard use.

I'll buy more Case knives. If I was gifting a knife to someone that needed an EDC user blade and was not a knife type that could sharpen and care for a knife, Case would not be my choice.

 

[white cloud]

I can't be any help, either. Every time I carry a stockman or trapper pattern, I need some tool that I'd have, had I carried a Swiss Army knife. (SAK)

I do wear a pouch on my belt for a larger, lockblade knife, usually a Benchmade Model 710, but it varies. But a pocket always holds a SAK. How old is yours, and which model?

My most carried is a Victorinox Spartan. But I have a SwissChamp in my briefcase. Lately, I've been carrying a Hunter model in a coat pocket if it's cold enough for a substantial jacket.

It's a Wenger and about 20 years old. The blade is getting worn down but it still does a great job. I am not sure the model but I have but I have never seen another. An old girl friend picked it up in Europe. It has the normal blades and screw drivers plus a saw and scissors. All of this is in a "Hiker" sized package. It is a valuable knife.

I am a real Spyderco fan, especially hawkbills. In the garden or on the water cutting either stems or lines, the hawkbill shines.

That said I got a Bench Made Crooked River as a retirement gift. It looks like a very nice knife and I will carry it during the long S.C. hunting season. I have field dressed deer with a hawkbill but it is not the best blade shape for the job.

 

[white cloud]

Texas Star, where in Texas do you live? My wife is from Ft. Worth. We go down for the stock show every year. I love Cooper's Pork Loin BBQ. It puts the stuff in S.C. to shame.

 

[Marshwheeling]

Most of my case knives are yellow delrin with CV blades, classics, but not what I would call pretty. The only one I would call pretty is this seahorse whittler in Rogers jig bone. The cell phone snap shots do not do it justice. It also carves pretty well, as I found when I found a Mora too unwieldy to chip away at the handle of an Opi 6 I was working on.

Conchita gave me this knife, I guess in retaliation for the smooth persimmon bone version I gave her. Now that is a gorgeous knife.

 

[peterGun]

Stopped at the Case museum and took a couple of pics, my favs

They had some really cool stuff both on display and for sale in the gift shop


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Mule Packer]

I've been collecting Case knives, too, especially since they were taken over by Zippo Lighters. The Case quality had fallen off over the years and the Zippo folks brought some of the old Case metallurgists out of retirement in order to bring Case back to the great quality they were once known for.

The quality of today's Case knives, in my opinion, is right up there with the best of them. When any one of my grandchildren turns seven years old, they get a Case knife from Grandpa for their birthday. It's usually a medium stockman and they get to pick the color. Of the fifteen grandchildren, eleven have already received their Case knife. Little Chloe turns seven this September 6th and she's hoping for a red knife. Don't tell her, but Grandpa already has it and will present it to her on her birthday. After Chloe, only three more left to turn seven. My oldest grandchild is 20, and he still carries the Case knife I gave him 13 years ago. His, by the way, is orange...his favorite color.

Here are a few of mine.

 

[Texas Star]

Texas Star, where in Texas do you live? My wife is from Ft. Worth. We go down for the stock show every year. I love Cooper's Pork Loin BBQ. It puts the stuff in S.C. to shame.

I'm in the Dallas area. The main BBQ chain here is Dickey's. Good, but fairly high for what it is. I'm not a massive fan of BBQ, anyway. I like it, but it isn't a big favorite.

I lived in Ft. Worth for awhile as a kid, and my daughter has her Master's degree from TCU. The natural history museum there is pretty good. There's a good zoo, too. But Dallas also has such things.
I like the SMU campus much better than I do that of TCU, and a remarkable gun store called Jackson Armory is very near. Not to be confused with the closed Jackson Arms of decades past.

I'm much more likely to eat at Red Lobster or Outback Steakhouse than I am to eat BBQ, unless I'm just in a BBQ mood. But Ft. Worth also has the other restaurants named, and a location or two of Central Market, an upscale grocer who stocks tea by Taylor's of Harrogate, the only stores here where I can find that without shopping Online. They have Twinings tea, too, and the best orange juice I've found.

 

[gwpercle]

I have a collection of Case knives , my Dad always carried a Case. He told me to never leave the house without my Case and a clean handkerchief in my pocket. Being not wealthy , Dad used his knife until the blades were sharpened down to a sliver and/or broken...Then he gave them to me ! Usually one blade was serviceable . For a boy even an old worn Case with only one blade was nice to have.
Dad passed on a few years ago but I still have several of the old worn Case pocket knives to remember him by. No collector value at all but to me they are priceless , they represent my Dad's lifetime of hard honest work. If you have children...pass them on to them.
Gary

 

[white cloud]

One question about the stainless Case folders. Are the other components such as the springs also stainless?

 

[k22fan]

One question about the stainless Case folders. Are the other components such as the springs also stainless?

My stainless Case knives go back to the mid-1970s and I have not encountered a Case pocket knife with stainless blades that did not also have stainless back springs. The pattern stamp suffixes SS and SSP indicate Case blades and back springs are stainless. SSP additionally means polished edges.

Besides springs the other components usually are brass liners and pins combined with nickel silver bolsters. In some premium knives the liners and pins are nickel silver. There were a few odd ball collector knives in which the bolsters and maybe the liners and pins were stainless steel but if you were shopping those multi hundred dollar knives it's unlikely you'd have asked your question.

][...] in my experience Case knives do not come from the factory with sharp edges. The ones I have also came new in desperate need of lubrication. [...]
If I was gifting a knife to someone that needed an EDC user blade and was not a knife type that could sharpen and care for a knife, Case would not be my choice.

While most Case knives do not leave the factory as sharp as we can get them it only takes a brief time with Arkansas stones to finish sharpening them. I would not want to pay the factory for that. They come sharp enough for an owner who is "not a knife type" and what they need is blade steel that is easy to sharpen. Even the hardest blade steels need repeated resharpening which makes wonder steels a poor choice for owners who do not care about their knives. The superior edge retention of steels like D2 or S30V comes with less tolerance for misuses like substituting the knife for a screw driver or pry bar. Non knife types are less likely to break Case's blades.