863 Who done it?

[Codger_64]

Here are a pair of Craftsman whittlers, stock #9494. The top knife is an Ulster #63, as mentioned above, which I have had for quite some time. The bottom knife is a recent find, a Schrade Walden #863.

At the moment I only have this poor ebay photo, but the Schrade Walden is an error/reject knife. It is dual stamped on the mark side "Schrade Walden NY. USA and over that Craftsman USA 9494. The back of the tang is double stamped "863".

Shall we make up a plausable story about this knife? Codger's best guess is that an error knife, a Schrade Walden 863 with double stamped pattern number was used as a "mule" to set up the die for a run of Craftsman #9494 knives.

While it has little collector value (well used and non-standard stamping), for me it is priceless in that it shows the reuse by Sears of the #9494 stock number when the supplier of these knives was switched from the original Ulster to Schrade Walden. Of course we know that often both brands were made in the same factory by the same workers on the same assembly lines. In this case, Sears kept the same stock number for the same pattern, but many times stock numbers were reused on entirely different patterns.

 

[thawk]

Here is a variation of the old whittlers pattern. Two blades on the top side, but a pen paired with the sabre clip. And the coping blade down below.

Clearly a Camillus 72, and is stamped with a 72 on the back of the master blade. I was not sure of it because I thought maybe the blades had been tampered with.

The Rodgers bone talked pretty loud. I looked in Larry's Camillus catalogs though, and found this example in the 1946 catalog. The 3 line stamp with the short underline is consistent with that year.

It is a nice knife in excellent condition, a little tarnish here and there. Classy swedges and grinds. Pinned shield. Maybe a little unusual, both the pen and coping blades have half stops.

The 1948 catalog had the blades with a coping blade on top, and the small clip on the bottom.

Makes me wonder how far back this Camillus pattern goes, and if they originally had two blades on the bottom of the frame?

 

[rprocter]

Charlie, regarding the "Remington" Whittler, is it a new acquisition ?
About a year ago an ebay seller had a batch of jigged black handled knives marked "Remington" on the tang and oval shield. I bought one thinking it to be the Camillus made "Remington" but on arrival it had a tiny clear sticker: "China", which soon fell off, as intended. I'm away from my collection for the next 2 weeks but i will try to locate that knife and see how close it is to yours.
roland

 

[waynorth]

Nice "72" Hal. You have a knack for detail, and for finding all the variations.
Roland, it could be Chinese?? I've had it for 6-7 years.

 

[jerryd6818]

I realize this thread is almost seven years old but for anyone who may still have questions about the early blade placement in the Camillus 72s, this should answer them. As you can see, the secondary blades were swapped in early 1947. The knives with the small pen are what I've named 1st Generation knives. Several changes were made to the Camillus 72 in the early years including discontinuing the saber grind on the pile side of the main blade. The image is from the 1946 catalog.

BTW Charlies Remington back on the previous page is one of three editions Camillus made with the Remington brand on them.

 

[deltaboy]

Cool History.

 

[Saddlebum]

With the information that Codger kindly supplied, I believe I can claim that my new purchase of a Craftsman 9494 is a first year 1959 knife. Craftsman first started use of the crown logo in 1960. So this Ulster 63 with Craftsman stamped on the shield in their distinctive signature script is before 1960. Thank you Codger and whoever did the research on Craftsman logos.