55 Pattern

waynorth said:
Cool looking knife, and quite the enigma!!
Does it show any signs of having the blade replaced??
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No sign of tampering. It is difficult to do any modifications to a shell handle without it showing. Here is a pic of an Imperial shell handle from my parts drawer. The liners, springs & blades are riveted together. The shell halves are held in place by 2 tabs. The bottom tab is slid into place and then the tab at the pivot end is bent into place to hold the shell half in place.




The colored sheeting, whatever sort they were using at that time, is pulled around the outer shell and pinched by the edge of the shell & the outside of the liner and thus held in place.
A major draw back of this style (one of several IMHO) is that moisture & dirt are trapped inside the shell eventually causing rust. When I popped this shell off I had to hit the liner on a Scotch Brite wheel to get the dirt & rust off so you could see the rivet.

It is very difficult to replace a blade on these & reassemble it without it showing big time.


glennbad said:
That's a strange one Dale. The shell comes from this series:

Imperial DE-82

It looks like the DE859, but it has an Ulster blade. Looks like a mutt to me, but who knows???

Glenn
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Yes Glenn, it is an interesting part of Schrade/Imperial/Ulster history.
I can’t help but wonder why blades from the 1960s are found in frames of knives produced in the 1980s? Was this an earlier version of this Diamond Edge shell handled knife that had some left over blades put in them? Or was it a case of a true “FACTORY FIND”, where someone found a bunch of old Ulster blades from the 1960s & decided to use them up? A third possibility is that they were exploring the feasibility of producing this line & actually made some of them & ran into production or marketing problems and shelved the project for 15 years?
Who knows?
It is likely that this will remain yet another mystery in the history of Schrade/Ulster/Imperial.





thawk said:
I'm going to try and shoot a few more 55's tomorrow. I'm still swooning over Dales' 50 with the bone scales!
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The only reason I have that knife is because Larry (lrv) is a gentleman. It was bought on ebay in the day when you could see who was bidding. Larry saw I was bidding and withdrew. Thanks Larry. The 50 is far from perfect. There are cracks in the handle.

Larry……………
Can you show us your 50OT ?
Could you also measure it for us & let us know if it is 3-5/16” or 3-1/4”?
Thanks Amigo.




Joel,
That is an impressive collection you have.
The pics are not that bad.
Thanks for posting.


Dale
 
Thanks for the "graphic" answer to my question Dale!:thumbup:
A good picture is worth a thousand blah blah blahs!:D
 
Excellent post Dale! It's always nice to learn about the inner workings of these knives:thumbup::thumbup:

Joel, that bowtied knife looks like a Kingston. Nice collection!

Eric
 
ulster55s.jpg


An Ulster 55Y that has seen some good action. And an Ulster 50 jack knife with purty cell handles.
 
What's going on with the blades on that purty cell knife Hal? Looks like the have an etched pattern, or a cloud reflection in them?? Nice knives!
I found one more, a saber grind Primble jack with Roger's bone handles.
55PrimbleJack.jpg
 
I'd say that Primble might look to be an Ulster, judging from the blade profile and bone style. On that cell, the blades are mirror polished and are picking up the branches from a tree. They put a mean grind on that 50 of yours Charlie. Took off some of the tang with it.
 
I agree it's probably an Ulster Hal. And decidedly hollow ground!
 
....I've just amended my post No 25 in this thread.....and if your looking for an apology for taking this thread off ""track"" you now have it...Its been an interesting 4 years....mainly due to decent folk like Codger...Over and Out.
 
Larry,
You have wetted the blade. You now belong to the knife.


Dale the 50 and 58 are both the same size and I think its 3 1/4. The only reason I'm saying that is the 34OT (3 5/16th) it a bit bigger than the 50's


50s.jpg


From the top
12UH (2 7/8)
50 Ulster
58OT
50OT
58OT
50 Ulster.
 
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Nice 50OT Larry!
Thanks for sharing it.

Here is another 3-1/4 inch Ulster.
Not sure of the number, it could be a 23878.






The blades are pretty full on this one, but it is possible the clip has lost 1/16 inch. An excellent job of crinking on this knife to get these 2 blades to fit in the space of this 1/16 inch back spring.

I like the bone on the handles.

Dale
 
1/16" backspring??? You are scarin' me Dale, with both blades open like that!!
Nice lookin', ummm. . .flexible (yeah, that's it flexible) knife!!
 
I though this 3-1/4 inch size was an odd ball size, and it is sort of, at least with Schrade. However this does not hold true with Kingston, Ulster & Imperial. This size is much more popular than I thought.

Here are more I found this evening. A couple even came from my part knives drawers.




Top to bottom they are:
Kingston jack
Imperial England shell handled jack
Imperial Prov. shell handled jack
Ulster 50Y jack

Kingston pen with celluloid handles

Schrade Walden Liberty Bell stockman
Imperial 4134 stockman
Ulster stockman- it has 3 broken blades, but all are tang stamped. :(

In addition, there are 8 or 9 other Imperial knives in the Frontier line that are the 3-1/4 inch size.
I wonder how many others there are wondering around that we haven't found yet?

I love a knife mystery! :D

Dale
 
50s.jpg


Larry - Is the peachseed 50 right above the 58OT bone handled or delrin? It has a really great red bone color.
Dale: That bone handled Ulster with the pen on the end is a dandy. I need to watch out for one of those.

Adding comment: I think I can answer my own question now. The peachseed appears to have exactly the same jigging as the one on the bottom. Are those both Ulster 50 jack knife patterns?
 
Adding comment: I think I can answer my own question now. The peachseed appears to have exactly the same jigging as the one on the bottom. Are those both Ulster 50 jack knife patterns
Click to expand...

Both are Ulster 50's and Delrin as far as I can tell.
:)
TTYL
LArry
 
THAWK thanks for starting this thread , A lot of good looking knives here!
W5RWU
 
I mentioned that Imperial used the 3-1/4 inch size more than Schrade did.
Here some of them from my collection, labeled for your convenience.

Dale

 
Another interesting older thread that is best re-birthed for collector interest....I even sliced myself I see in one of the photos opening my knives....at least I can say I have given my blood to this forum!..lol....
We don't seem to get as in debth with our threads now do we....?....is it apathy.....lack of Schrade interest.....or are all the best knives buried deep in collections ..rarely seeing the light of day.....Hoo Roo

P.S. oops I now see on reading the whole thread why it was buried so deep in the archives....it got a bit terse ...when we still had fire in our belly's......best to re-bury it...
 
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