Case micarta large stockman questions

Tyson A Wright

Tyson A Wright

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Jun 9, 2020
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1,809
Three related questions:
1. When did Case first put micarta (on any knife)?
2. When did Case first offer the large stockman (75 pattern)?
3. When did Case first put micarta on the 75 large stockman?

Thanks for any help on this.
 
I am probably wrong, but I think the 75 in Micarta was first offered in this decade.
My10375 with "green & black" Micarta (I have yet to spot a speck of green. All I see is black and brown.) date code is:
•••
••••
(three dots over four dots ... 2021? I don't know.)
 
Last edited:
afishhunter said:
I am probably wrong, but I think the 75 in Micarta was first offered in this decade.
My10375 with "green & black" Micarta (I have yet to spot a speck of green. All I see is black and brown.) date code is:
•••
••••
(three dots over four dots ... 2021? I don't know.)
Click to expand...

My black linen 75 is also 2021. But micarta was invented in 1910. I'd expect it should have taken less than 111 years for Case to use it for their large stockman...but I don't know when they started.
 
Tyson A Wright said:
My black linen 75 is also 2021. But micarta was invented in 1910. I'd expect it should have taken less than 111 years for Case to use it for their large stockman...but I don't know when they started.
Click to expand...
I got the year of the date code on mine right???🤯😳

I don't know when they started using Micarta in the last 114 years either, or if they used it for a while, took a break and only used celluloid, other early plastics like Bakelite, Delrin (post 1956), bone, and acrylics, for a while.
The 75's I've seen online until a couple years ago have been bone, Yellow Delrin, and a few in their ... "wilder" ... multi color acrylics.
(I don't recall seeing any with wood covers ... Does or has Case even use(d) wood on any pattern? 🤔)
The lack of Micarta on the 75's leads me to "think" it is a recent innovation, at least on that pattern.

Honestly, Micarta on a "traditional" factory produced knife seems to be fairly uncommon. It is much more common on "modern" knives, and some non-folding "survival"/"bushcraft" knives.

PLEASE REMEMBER: I am far from an expert on Case! To be honest, I never heard of Case knives until after I joined BF.

As I've said before, "growing up" in Iowa in the 1960's and 1970's "Case" was farm implements. (The latter half of the 1950's I paid attention to and knew a bit about firearms, but not knives.)

I do not recall any ads for Case Knives in my "BOY'S LIFE" magazines, or my dad's "FIELD AND STREAM" and "OUTDOOR LIFE" or any of his gun magazines. (I am sure Case did advertise in them, just not in those distributed west of the Mississippi River.)
I do remember ads for Western (primarily the L/F66, and W48), Marbles, Schrade, Ulster, Camillus, Remington, Winchester, and Utica. in those magazines)

After I moved to Southern Cali in 1975 to my returning to Iowa in 1980, I did not see ang Case knives in any store I visited in the San Bernardino/Fontana/Ontario area, including the knife store at the big mall in San Bernardino, or the weekly San Bernardino Orange Show Swap Meet, held at the Orange Show Fairgrounds, which I attended weekly for at least 3 years.

Growing up, we had all the Imperial-Schrade brands, Marbles, Utica, Western, Queen/S&M, Frost, Mora, and some "Made in Japan" brands to choose from ... and Remington, Winchester, Colt, and Browning, which my step father said to avoid, because (quote) "They know how to make guns - not knives!" (end quote)
(YES!!! He was a fool about more than two things. Another was "Archery isn't good for hunting deer or turkey!" ... tho he did have a recurve bow and arrows with broadheads for hunting. 🙄 ... I think he took his Iowa whitetails with a 12 guage Remington 1100 using slugs. Centerfire rifles were prohibited for deer hunting in Iowa. As far as I know, they still are.
He used one of his rifles when hunting deer on his father's farm, somewhere in MO. I don't remember what city it was near. He only took me and my brothers there once, to help with the haying, when I was 13 or 14 ... maybe 15? (I decided "If I ever do this (haying) again, I'M GOING TO OWN AND DRIVE THE 🤬TRUCK!!!" 😡 ... I did, too. 😁👍)
 
afishhunter said:
I got the year of the date code on mine right???🤯😳
Click to expand...
FWIW, the 7-dot stamp indicates 2023:
https://www.casecollectorsclub.com/college/tang-stamps/
(The way I think of the "dot code" is 10 - (number of dots) = years to add to start of decade.
For your knife, 10 - 7 = 3 so year of manufacture is 2020 + 3 = 2023.
Or, equivalently, you could just add (number of MISSING dots) to start of decade to get year. Your knife shows 7 dots so 3 are missing,
2020 + 3 = 2023.)

- GT
 
5K Qs said:
FWIW, the 7-dot stamp indicates 2023:
https://www.casecollectorsclub.com/college/tang-stamps/
(The way I think of the "dot code" is 10 - (number of dots) = years to add to start of decade.
For your knife, 10 - 7 = 3 so year of manufacture is 2020 + 3 = 2023.
Or, equivalently, you could just add (number of MISSING dots) to start of decade to get year. Your knife shows 7 dots so 3 are missing,
2020 + 3 = 2023.)

- GT
Click to expand...
huh ... what I get for "thinking". 🙄 I "thought" just one dot was missing. 🤨 ☹️
 
afishhunter said:
(I don't recall seeing any with wood covers ... Does or has Case even use(d) wood on any pattern? 🤔)
The lack of Micarta on the 75's leads me to "think" it is a recent innovation, at least on that pattern.
Click to expand...


Case used wood on their Whaler model and also jigged wood on the Loom fixer. There may have been others.

edited to add. They do a whole line of Sycamore handled knives
 
Last edited:
I picked up 3 of the Nat. Micarta 75's from the Herder in the Ozarks when they had them on sale last Dec. All have reasonably good fit, finish and edge grinds, but one suffers from the dreaded rounded tip that Case occasionally installs free of charge. All three box labels are dated 1/31/2023.

Case has offered the 75 in at least 2 wood covers this year, Zebrawood and Curly Oak. Several retailers still have the Zebrawood in stock. The handful I've seen in person from the Zebrawood run have covers that run the gamut from spectacular to ho-hum. I haven't seen the Curly Oak in person.

The 75 is my favorite Case pattern but I don't know much of its history. Hopefully someone can chime in with additional info about the history of the pattern.
 
5K Qs said:
FWIW, the 7-dot stamp indicates 2023:
https://www.casecollectorsclub.com/college/tang-stamps/
(The way I think of the "dot code" is 10 - (number of dots) = years to add to start of decade.
For your knife, 10 - 7 = 3 so year of manufacture is 2020 + 3 = 2023.
Or, equivalently, you could just add (number of MISSING dots) to start of decade to get year. Your knife shows 7 dots so 3 are missing,
2020 + 3 = 2023.)

- GT
Click to expand...

I must have misread Steve's post. Mine is four dots above, 5 dots below.

20241110-135613.jpg


afishhunter afishhunter can you post a picture of the tang stamps on yours, please? I'm curious about the three dots over four dots. I had thought Case deleted dots from one row first, then the other (so 2023 would be two dots over five dots), but I'm no expert (and don't have any Case made newer than 2021, yet).
 
Tyson A Wright said:
I'm curious about the three dots over four dots. I had thought Case deleted dots from one row first, then the other (so 2023 would be two dots over five dots), but I'm no expert (and don't have any Case made newer than 2021, yet).
Click to expand...
Tyson, if you go to the link in my previous post (#6 above), you can find the section for the decade 2020-2029 and see all the stamps they've used or plan to use. There seems to be a pattern of deletion of dots for the decade (top left, bottom right, top right, bottom left, ...), but it's not the pattern I'd have thought of first or second. And if you look at other decades, the deletion patterns change from one decade to the next. I guess the Case coordinator of date stamps is a firm believer in "variety is the spice of life".

- GT
 
5K Qs said:
Tyson, if you go to the link in my previous post (#6 above), you can find the section for the decade 2020-2029 and see all the stamps they've used or plan to use. There seems to be a pattern of deletion of dots for the decade (top left, bottom right, top right, bottom left, ...), but it's not the pattern I'd have thought of first or second. And if you look at other decades, the deletion patterns change from one decade to the next. I guess the Case coordinator of date stamps is a firm believer in "variety is the spice of life".

- GT
Click to expand...

That is fascinatingly odd. Thanks for that - that's not what I was trying to learn about in starting this thread, but that's fun
Thanks!
 
afishhunter said:
PLEASE REMEMBER: I am far from an expert on Case! To be honest, I never heard of Case knives until after I joined BF.

As I've said before, "growing up" in Iowa in the 1960's and 1970's "Case" was farm implements. (The latter half of the 1950's I paid attention to and knew a bit about firearms, but not knives.)

I do not recall any ads for Case Knives in my "BOY'S LIFE" magazines, or my dad's "FIELD AND STREAM" and "OUTDOOR LIFE" or any of his gun magazines. (I am sure Case did advertise in them, just not in those distributed west of the Mississippi River.)
I do remember ads for Western (primarily the L/F66, and W48), Marbles, Schrade, Ulster, Camillus, Remington, Winchester, and Utica. in those magazines)

Growing up, we had all the Imperial-Schrade brands, Marbles, Utica, Western, Queen/S&M, Frost, Mora, and some "Made in Japan" brands to choose from ... and Remington, Winchester, Colt, and Browning,
Click to expand...

Fascinating.

I remember them since I was a child, and I'm almost 67.
 
Tyson A Wright said:
That is fascinatingly odd. Thanks for that - that's not what I was trying to learn about in starting this thread, but that's fun
Thanks!
Click to expand...
You're welcome!
In some recent decades, Case stamps had rows of alternating dots and crosses, so they had even more choices about how to delete symbols. 🤓

- GT
(I wrote this yesterday, but apparently didn't post it; found it in the "post editing box" this morning. :rolleyes: )
 
Tyson A Wright said:
I must have misread Steve's post. Mine is four dots above, 5 dots below.

20241110-135613.jpg


afishhunter afishhunter can you post a picture of the tang stamps on yours, please? I'm curious about the three dots over four dots. I had thought Case deleted dots from one row first, then the other (so 2023 would be two dots over five dots), but I'm no expert (and don't have any Case made newer than 2021, yet).
Click to expand...
Here you go. 😇
IMG_20241111_130924.jpg
Now you mention it, all my other Case have (incomplete) lines of five consisting of "x" and "*" or "•", number of each different on each row; "x x x" over " x • x• " for example. 🤨
 
afishhunter said:
I got the year of the date code on mine right???🤯😳

I don't know when they started using Micarta in the last 114 years either, or if they used it for a while, took a break and only used celluloid, other early plastics like Bakelite, Delrin (post 1956), bone, and acrylics, for a while.
The 75's I've seen online until a couple years ago have been bone, Yellow Delrin, and a few in their ... "wilder" ... multi color acrylics.
(I don't recall seeing any with wood covers ... Does or has Case even use(d) wood on any pattern? 🤔)
The lack of Micarta on the 75's leads me to "think" it is a recent innovation, at least on that pattern.

Honestly, Micarta on a "traditional" factory produced knife seems to be fairly uncommon. It is much more common on "modern" knives, and some non-folding "survival"/"bushcraft" knives.

PLEASE REMEMBER: I am far from an expert on Case! To be honest, I never heard of Case knives until after I joined BF.

As I've said before, "growing up" in Iowa in the 1960's and 1970's "Case" was farm implements. (The latter half of the 1950's I paid attention to and knew a bit about firearms, but not knives.)

I do not recall any ads for Case Knives in my "BOY'S LIFE" magazines, or my dad's "FIELD AND STREAM" and "OUTDOOR LIFE" or any of his gun magazines. (I am sure Case did advertise in them, just not in those distributed west of the Mississippi River.)
I do remember ads for Western (primarily the L/F66, and W48), Marbles, Schrade, Ulster, Camillus, Remington, Winchester, and Utica. in those magazines)

After I moved to Southern Cali in 1975 to my returning to Iowa in 1980, I did not see ang Case knives in any store I visited in the San Bernardino/Fontana/Ontario area, including the knife store at the big mall in San Bernardino, or the weekly San Bernardino Orange Show Swap Meet, held at the Orange Show Fairgrounds, which I attended weekly for at least 3 years.

Growing up, we had all the Imperial-Schrade brands, Marbles, Utica, Western, Queen/S&M, Frost, Mora, and some "Made in Japan" brands to choose from ... and Remington, Winchester, Colt, and Browning, which my step father said to avoid, because (quote) "They know how to make guns - not knives!" (end quote)
(YES!!! He was a fool about more than two things. Another was "Archery isn't good for hunting deer or turkey!" ... tho he did have a recurve bow and arrows with broadheads for hunting. 🙄 ... I think he took his Iowa whitetails with a 12 guage Remington 1100 using slugs. Centerfire rifles were prohibited for deer hunting in Iowa. As far as I know, they still are.
He used one of his rifles when hunting deer on his father's farm, somewhere in MO. I don't remember what city it was near. He only took me and my brothers there once, to help with the haying, when I was 13 or 14 ... maybe 15? (I decided "If I ever do this (haying) again, I'M GOING TO OWN AND DRIVE THE 🤬TRUCK!!!" 😡 ... I did, too. 😁👍)
Click to expand...
Wonderful history. Thanks for sharing. I'd love to know more about who started the micarta trend for knife handles in general. I only became aware of micarta as a material in 2021 when I got my first GEC, the 71 from their Farm & Field Tool line, what I knew as a sodbuster pattern. They call it the "Bull Nose Work Knife." It has the coolest OD green linen micarta covers on it.
 
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