Best Selling / Most Popular Traditional Of All Time?

M

Murphy Slaw

Joined
Sep 22, 2023
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706
My gut thinks it would be a Case, perhaps a Peanut. Or the 18 Medium Stockman. But then I remember as a kid, I probably saw more Schrades than Case knives. Perhaps they had better availability in the booming 50's and 60's when every man was expected to have a pocketknife. But then I remember the trusty Barlow. Or the history making Buck 110. Even Bo and Luke had a Buck knife.

I did a search and didn't find a thread but figured you guys would know.
 
I remember back Schrade when was still making knives in the U.S., they touted the Old Timer 34OT stockman as the best-selling pocketknife in the world.

With that said, if you consider a SAK traditional (as an awful lot of the world does), then I'd imagine Victorinox 🇨🇭 could stake a claim to the Best Selling / Most Popular Traditional crown.
 
mnblade said:
With that said, if you consider a SAK traditional (as an awful lot of the world does), then I'd imagine Victorinox 🇨🇭 could stake a claim to the Best Selling / Most Popular Traditional crown.
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I've seen this conclusion before, and it would get my vote for best-selling brand. :thumbsup::thumbsup:
(If you want best-selling specific model/pattern, I'm quite clueless.)

- GT
 
mnblade said:
I remember back Schrade when was still making knives in the U.S., they touted the Old Timer 34OT stockman as the best-selling pocketknife in the world.

With that said, if you consider a SAK traditional (as an awful lot of the world does), then I'd imagine Victorinox 🇨🇭 could stake a claim to the Best Selling / Most Popular Traditional crown.
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I think you are probably right. If you take Victorinox out my guess would be Case. They are everywhere. I guess you can say the same for Schrade though. I don’t compare what they make now in the same league as the USA made knives of the past so I count those as different.

Before you roast me and defend the offshore Schrade knives…..remember it’s my opinion 😂😂.
 
its probably a bit of a loaded question, Case as a brand has been in existence since 1889, but they were bought by zippo in 1993. So if youve been around that long sure, youll win on volume alone. its like the bible winning the title of most produced book in a sense. Schatt and Morgan for example started in 1895.
 
In my view, Internationally, Victorinox, Boker, Opinel, mora, even higgonokami, Buck should be plentiful.

Case and Schrade do/did not appear much out of the US, especially until a few years ago when online sales started.

Victorinox and Boker sell many variants in many countries, and sell well. Case is much smaller internationally,
 
The full-sized Case trapper is most likely their biggest seller. With literally millions of the yellow comps out there, plus all the commemorative and special editions, it would take the prize. I also agree with the Schrade 34OT and its predecessors (Middleman Stockman) being their biggest seller.
 
I remember a discussion somewhere on this forum about it... I think a lot has to do with geography or generations, etc., but brand wasn't really a factor in my memory.

But even then, a lot of that was based on the style of knife, not the brand.

Im 50 and grew up in western PA. I remember family/friends having folding knives, but it was a mismatch of brands. Sporting good stores and hardware stores carried what they carried.

But while my grandfather's generation had 2-3 blade folding knives, my dad's generation all had Buck 110-style folders and SAKs. My dad has passed, but his KaBar folding hunter is the knife that I remember him always carrying.
 
mrknife said:
its probably a bit of a loaded question, Case as a brand has been in existence since 1889, but they were bought by zippo in 1993. So if youve been around that long sure, youll win on volume alone. its like the bible winning the title of most produced book in a sense.
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I believe both Vic and Opinel have been around just as long as Case.
In world-wide sales, they have been number 1 and 2 respectively for decades, each selling millions of knives a year - every year.
 
afishhunter said:
I believe both Vic and Opinel have been around just as long as Case.
In world-wide sales, they have been number 1 and 2 respectively for decades, each selling millions of knives a year - every year.
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and neither company changed hands right?
 
afishhunter said:
I believe both Vic and Opinel have been around just as long as Case.
In world-wide sales, they have been number 1 and 2 respectively for decades, each selling millions of knives a year - every year.
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If you trust Wikipedia, Opinel sells about 15 million knives a year, and as of 2006, victorinox produced about 34,000 knives daily - so maybe around 9 million if you multiply that by work days.
 
Jakeywax31 said:
I was definitely thinking about USA sales in my above post. Worldwide? I’m not qualified to answer. Hell I wasn’t qualified to answer the first time up there 👆 😀.
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US sales only?
Before 2004, my guess would be Imperial-Schrade, to include the various family brands of Hammer Brand, Ulster and Camillus.

Case has been around for a long time. However, growing up on the west side of the Mississippi River, I never heard of them. "Case" was a tractor and farm implement company. I'm not sure if they also made things like a backhoe.
There were no Case knives at our hardware, sporting goods, or Farm & Fleet stores. Victorinox and Wenger, Opinel, the various Imperial Schrade brands, Western, (folders and fixed blades) Utica, Colonial, Buck, a few Solingen, and Sheffield brands, some now defunct USA brands like CATT and Robeson, a couple "no names" (probably made by Imperial, Ulster, Colonial, and whatever Japanese companies who were exporting at the time.) Yes. We had those.

Honestly, I don't believe Case Cutlery marketed their wares west of the Mississippi River, until the mid-late 1980's to early 1990's.
I don't recall any ads for them in my dad's 'Field and Stream', 'Outdoor Life', or his other such magazines, nor in my 'Boy's Life' Scouting magazine, in the 1960's and 1970's, nor in his 'Gun Digest's' during that time frame, for that matter.
I'm SURE both WR and Sons put ads in those magazines, and the annual 'Gun Digest', just not in the ones distributed on the west side of the river.
Even after I relocated to Smoggy Southern California after High School, I did not see any Case knives for sale.

As far as hunting knives is concerned, for several decades the Western L/F/W66 "owned" the deer hunting woods and fields in North America, possibly for the first half decade after the venerable Buck 110 was introduced.
(Let's be honest, a lot of 110's since they hit the market have never gone hunting or camping - even until today.) (Yes, I am aware many went to war, even after Vietnam.) They were a heavy-duty work knife for I'd guess the majority of owners. I know I left my 110 (and Old Timer 7OT) home in favor of my Western L66 when I went hunting, back when I was in high school and college.
I didn't take my 110 (or Old Timer 7OT) camping or hunting until 1995, when I was on a 2 year ... let's call it a "sabbatical" ... from work, (I was hiding from The Junior Boys gang, located in Wichita, KS) in Southwest Missouri. (Long story.)

Post 2004? Buck would be my guess, due to the 110 and 119.
 
afishhunter said:
US sales only?
Before 2004, my guess would be Imperial-Schrade, to include the various family brands of Hammer Brand, Ulster and Camillus.

Case has been around for a long time. However, growing up on the west side of the Mississippi River, I never heard of them. "Case" was a tractor and farm implement company. I'm not sure if they also made things like a backhoe.
There were no Case knives at our hardware, sporting goods, or Farm & Fleet stores. Victorinox and Wenger, Opinel, the various Imperial Schrade brands, Western, (folders and fixed blades) Utica, Colonial, Buck, a few Solingen, and Sheffield brands, some now defunct USA brands like CATT and Robeson, a couple "no names" (probably made by Imperial, Ulster, Colonial, and whatever Japanese companies who were exporting at the time.) Yes. We had those.

Honestly, I don't believe Case Cutlery marketed their wares west of the Mississippi River, until the mid-late 1980's to early 1990's.
I don't recall any ads for them in my dad's 'Field and Stream', 'Outdoor Life', or his other such magazines, nor in my 'Boy's Life' Scouting magazine, in the 1960's and 1970's, nor in his 'Gun Digest's' during that time frame, for that matter.
I'm SURE both WR and Sons put ads in those magazines, and the annual 'Gun Digest', just not in the ones distributed on the west side of the river.
Even after I relocated to Smoggy Southern California after High School, I did not see any Case knives for sale.

As far as hunting knives is concerned, for several decades the Western L/F/W66 "owned" the deer hunting woods and fields in North America, possibly for the first half decade after the venerable Buck 110 was introduced.
(Let's be honest, a lot of 110's since they hit the market have never gone hunting or camping - even until today.) (Yes, I am aware many went to war, even after Vietnam.) They were a heavy-duty work knife for I'd guess the majority of owners. I know I left my 110 (and Old Timer 7OT) home in favor of my Western L66 when I went hunting, back when I was in high school and college.
I didn't take my 110 (or Old Timer 7OT) camping or hunting until 1995, when I was on a 2 year ... let's call it a "sabbatical" ... from work, (I was hiding from The Junior Boys gang, located in Wichita, KS) in Southwest Missouri. (Long story.)

Post 2004? Buck would be my guess, due to the 110 and 119.
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what about things like sears catalogs and etc
 
afishhunter said:
Were not those contract knives from Imperial-Schrade and possibly others, like Utica?
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ive no idea actually, thats one of the companies i never got too deep into because by my time it was overseas schrades and i was disappointed enough to not delve deeper into the history.
 
Although victorinox may be considered (by some) as more of a multi-tool rather than a traditional slipjoint nowadays, I think it is unquestionably a traditional slipjoint. On top of that, victorinox got its start in 1889, and like stated above, has never changed hands in ownership. It has got to be the best selling slipjoint right now, and probably has been for decades. Now, all of this is conjecture on my part, I'm no expert, but I think that easily puts them in the #1 slot for best selling most popular traditional knife of all time....

I could be wrong though, I wouldn't call myself the sharpest knife in the knife drawer.
 
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