Does anyone know when Case started using stainless steel?

[Evan Shaving Cream]

I can't recall ever seeing an older Case knife that doesn't have a patina and the tang stamps on the old knives make no mention of the type of steel used which really got me thinking about this whole thing. Searching this question in Google hasn't presented any sort of answer which seems odd to me.

 

[Old Hunter]

There is a chapter of information about different Case patterns and different era's when carbon and stainless was used - look for Collecting Case Knives by Steve Pfeiffer. The short answer is that the earliest Case knives to use stainless steel was in the 1920's, primarily in the Fishermans models. After WW-II and into the 1960's the use of stainless in multiple patterns grew considerably with many popular patterns being offered in either CV or SS. OH

 

[Ernie1980]

I have seen a couple older knives with stainless, as mentioned above. However it seems that the vast majority of the pre 70s Case knives were carbon steel. I have several from the 60s and 70s that are all carbon.

 

[jc57]

1916

 

[Rookie82]

There were some in the Tested Era, but it became popular after WW2.

 

[jc57]

http://www.wrcase.com/case_college/tang_stamps/

Third row from the top. A tang stamp reading "Case's Stainless" was in use from 1916 through the 1920s. So certainly in 1916 they were making stainless knives, unless they have erroneous information in their web site.

 

[Ace Rimmer]

Steve's book says that stainless steel was offered by Case and other manufacturers "as early as the 1920s" but that it was not well accepted by knife users at that time.