I know what you mean by sharp - Chicago's and Old Hickory's are my favorite brands in kitchen knives; those old carbon blades hold up for a lifetime and then some if you take care of them. Whether it would dull quickly would depend on what you do with it; in my opinion, it will stay sharper longer in the kitchen doing food prep and the like, than it will making fuzz stick & cutting tent stakes out in the woods. One advantage of a good carbon steel like 1095 is that you can sharpen it really well on a small standard stone. I couldn't tell you if it's as "hard" as a Kabar, someone else may be able to answer that one for you.
The bottom line is, your 61-2 would make an okay utility knife; I have several old "kitchen" knives that go camping with us and get a lot of use, though I have my preferences for a shorter, slightly thicker blade. And remember:
DON'T CHOP ANYTHING WITH IT. I learned the hard way with an old Russell that these blades are not tempered for chopping. You'll lose chips out of the blade really fast doing that. (My wife is PO'd to this day over me ruining her Russell.)
Regarding sheaths, you might find someone here on the forums who can make a simple kydex sheath for you. The stiffness would help protect the blade. And if nothing else, you can make a sheath out of milk carton plastic and duct tape. I did that more than once as a kid.
thx - cpr
ps - by the way, when I mentioned
"...if you were to fall on it..." earlier, what I meant was while it was sheathed, not loose. I remember these types of knives from my childhood (smokehouses, pig slaughtering time, etc.), and how the blade could take a "set", in other words a permanent bend, if you sat on it, fell on it, leaned on it, etc. while it was in it's sheath.
