Case Bone stag?

[onojoe]

I have seen a couple of Case knives that are labeled as having a bonestag handle. Is this really stag?

CASE XX KNIFE 50476 BONESTAG SWAYBACK

 

[Flynlow]

Nope just cow bone handles . They call that bone stag not deer or sambar stag but it looks like it.

 

[swaybacksteve]

Bone jigged and burnt to look like stag

 

[black mamba]

Case calls it bonestag, other companies call it stag bone: in both cases it is bone jigged to look like stag.

 

[Old Hunter]

I will have to say that Case does a superb job jigging the handles to resemble stag. I've had this one several years and it remains a nice looking knife. OH

 

[Will Power]

If the word bone appears with Stag as in CASE Bonestag 6.5 or Queen's ACSB (Amber Carved Stag Bone) then it is not Stag but bone treated and jigged to resemble Stag. Both of these companies do a very good job with these offerings giving a very desirable knife handle indeed. Frankly, CASE's Bonestag is much more attractive than most of their real Stag which I find generally anaemic and smooth, rather like a dog's chew bone!

 

[onojoe]

Thanks for all the replies. That is what I figured. They do such a nice job, that it is hard to tell

 

[Halfneck]

I plan on picking up at least one of the new Case Bone Stag knives. Handled them at BLADE and was impressed. All were Tony Bose patterns, CV steel, and I liked the Federal shield.

 

[kenspen]

One of these things is not like the other .... (Sorry, too much Sesame Street when the kids were little). Anyway, for the sake of comparison, 3 Case stags and one bone stag. FYI, the bone stag is the third one down.

 

[Crazy Canuck]

I plan on picking up at least one of the new Case Bone Stag knives. Handled them at BLADE and was impressed. All were Tony Bose patterns, CV steel, and I liked the Federal shield.

This is exciting. I'm waiting for my shipping notice for the Sowbelly. Really looking forward to this one.

 

[5K Qs]

This isn't Case bone stag, but for what it's worth, here are a couple of stag bone sowbelly stockman knives, a Colt "black stag" stag bone sowbelly and a Marbles stag bone sowbelly. Just my opinion, but I like these better than Case's bone stag (and I like Case's "smooth" stag better than any of these stag bones; even if the stag from Case isn't very gnarly, it's still stag!).

- GT

 

[brownshoe]

Bonestag is jigged bone and also fake stag. I've never been fooled by it and don't like the intrinsic con job in the marketing ploy. More than a few purveyors don't tell you that you are really buying bone and not stag. It's still a con job if you lie by omission by using a trade name instead of the actual common name of the material "jigged bone."

People don't try to convince you that died giraffe bone is "bonemammoth."

 

[supratentorial]

In 100 year old catalogs, bone was often described as "stag". Real stag was often differentiated as "genuine stag". The idea for the "con" is an old one... so old that I'm not sure why it fools anyone anymore... but it does.

When I was a noob, I thought Case's "appaloosa bone" was made from horses. Don't tell anyone.

Now days... some slicksters might pretend to not know the difference between stag and bone stag when it's convenient for their sale :grumpy:...but manufacturers do a pretty good job of differentiating it. :thumbup: "bone stag" pretty much describes exactly what it is. It's bone made to look like stag.

 

[supratentorial]

Very nice! In my opinion, it's by far the best cover material from Rough Rider et al. I would buy more expensive knives with that jig pattern. That's saying a lot since I view some of the other covers from Rough Rider et al as rejects from the dog chew bulk bin at a pet store. Their original bone stag was aweful. This new bone stag is on another level. The quality of the bone ranges from fantastic to not so good but they seem to use higher quality bone in general for this new bone stag. Perhaps thicker/denser bone was necessary for this type of jigged pattern.

This isn't Case bone stag, but for what it's worth, here are a couple of stag bone sowbelly stockman knives, a Colt "black stag" stag bone sowbelly and a Marbles stag bone sowbelly. Just my opinion, but I like these better than Case's bone stag (and I like Case's "smooth" stag better than any of these stag bones; even if the stag from Case isn't very gnarly, it's still stag!).

- GT

 

[Will Power]

I certainly don't see it as a con-job, if it says bone in it then it is clearly not antler, rather obvious actually. They don't look much the same and they don't feel similar in the hand. But Bonestag as I said earlier, can make a satisfying handle option. The RR/Colt stuff certainly looks good, I had a Colt Teardrop in it but found the rest of it too gaudy for my taste and gave it away, very decently finished knife mind.

Here's a CASE 6.5 Bonestag cv stockman with Böker Germany also carbon.

Queen Cutlery Teardrop D2 in WCSB White Carved Stag Bone

Queen Teardrop in ACSB

GEC liner-lock 73 in Bonestag

Sambar Stag by Mr. Ohta

 

[5K Qs]

I certainly don't see it as a con-job, if it says bone in it then it is clearly not antler, rather obvious actually. ...

But the problem is that it DOESN'T always say bone, Will. I just googled "Colt black stag", and the first two vendors on the list of results refer to the "Black Stag Series" and nowhere does the text for any of the individual knives use the word "bone". I remember that when I first saw these knives online, I found it hard to believe that they could be genuine stag, and it was only while checking other vendors that I saw the phrase "black stag bone" in conjunction with these knives. So, it may not have been a con-job on the part of the vendors who always used "black stag" and never "bone", but it certainly seems to be a case of inadequate knowledge of their product (and it's disturbing to me that at least a year later, the descriptions haven't been made more accurate).

- GT

 

[supratentorial]

Case has been good. They use 6.5 instead of 5 (stag) in their numbering system and call it "bone stag" instead of "stag". Iirc, it's their jigged synthetic that gets confusing with jigged bone since they both use 6 in their numbering system. Queen has also been good at differentiating stag and bone stag.

I haven't paid much attention to the descriptions from Rough Rider et al. I'm surprised and not so surprised. I'm surprised since some of their knives are made with real stag.

If there are good clear photos (or if the jig pattern is unrealistic) it can be easy to distinguish stag and bone stag... or jigged synthetic and jigged bone. ...on the topic of good clear photos... it seems like photography for sales improved dramatically (due to the popularity of affordable consumer level cameras) and then regressed dramatically by decades (due to the popularity of cameras on cell phones... and unrealiable sellers who prefer that their images are blurry ). Some of the auction photos remind me of the days of the early internet. LOL