Case Knives Bone Question

prisoner6

prisoner6

Joined
Aug 7, 2003
Messages
470
I have searched, but can't find a good answer for my question.

In my youth, my first knife, and that of many of my friends, was a Case Stockman in kind of a brownish jigged bone with the oval shield similar to what now comes on the yellow delrin models.

Many of our parents carried the same.

What was the color of that bone called? And it seemed to be the standard offering for many years, why do they no longer do them that way?
 
How long ago are you talking about? I wonder if it could have been what collectors call "green bone". From what I have read, "green bone" and "red bone" are collectors' terms and were never officially used by Case.
 
Quoting from Steve Pfeiffer's book Collecting Case Knives, "...an important fact is that from the early years up through the late 1970s, Case never produced any bone-handled knives having any specific color or jig pattern. Many knife collectors new to the hobby might be surprised to find this out, since the terms "green bone," red bone" and others are commonly used to describe Case bone handles of various vintages... No mention of bone color or jig pattern was ever made [in the catalogs]..."
 
Last edited:
Boattale said:
This is described on the box as pocket worn corn cob jigged red bone.
View attachment 2495145
Click to expand...
Good point. When talking about "red bone" it's important to make a distinction between early knives (say, pre-1980) and more current knives. I have several Case knives that are listed as "red bone," "old red bone," etc., but they were all made post-2000. See my post quoting Steve Pfeiffer's book. [I should have been more clear about this in my original post.]
 
Last edited:
This would have been 70's, maybe very early 80's. They had a brownish/dark dark reddish coloring.
 
prisoner6 said:
Yes!

Also, is there a trick to using Imgur to post photos? I get a message that it cannot be loaded from the link.
Click to expand...
Here's what it looks like using a windows desktop. Copy the BBCode option and paste it into your message.
FPJHrOr.jpg


"Be seeing you!" 👌
 
prisoner6 said:
True. But when they make so many variants, why not make these still?
Click to expand...
I don't have a source, but I believe that some of the dyes used in the old days were banned due to carcinogens in the solvents.

The replacements don't use the same chemicals, but they also don't penetrate the bone as well. That is why newer dyes don't always soak so deeply into the bone, but they are safer for the knifemaker to be exposed to.

I may be wrong, but I seem to remember reading about that around here.
 
jc57 said:
I don't have a source, but I believe that some of the dyes used in the old days were banned due to carcinogens in the solvents.

The replacements don't use the same chemicals, but they also don't penetrate the bone as well. That is why newer dyes don't always soak so deeply into the bone, but they are safer for the knifemaker to be exposed to.

I may be wrong, but I seem to remember reading about that around here.
Click to expand...
I suspect you are correct. Here's what Steve says about the older dyes in his book:

All of the early bone variations from "dark bone," "tan bone," "green bone," and "red bone" that have been identified by collectors were evidently random variations that were due either to changes in the bone itself over the years or (more likely) changes to dyes used. I have never seen any evidence that any of the bone colors or changes to the coloring or jigging patterns were intentional during those years. [From the context I believe "those years" refers to "...the early years pre-WWII on through the 1950s to the 1970s...".]
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top