Elusive Schrades

ed_is_dead said:
Was hoping you Schrade fans might be able to clue me in better on this fella.








Can I ask what date range was the 881 produced until and where would you place it. Also, its hard to peg what the scales are, seems bone. Appreciate your knowledge guys thanks.
Btw I prefer it to my 80T, or I will do once it frees up a little.
Ps:can see no pivot pin on them so Swindon key then? How tough is this construction method over conventional (or not)?
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That tang stamp dates it between 1946-1973, although I'd guess pre-1970's, and likely Swinden. Looks like like bone to me...
 
glennbad said:
That tang stamp dates it between 1946-1973, although I'd guess pre-1970's, and likely Swinden. Looks like like bone to me...
Click to expand...
Glennbad, thank you for that! So it's likely older than I am:) Always a good thing in a knife.
This knife is growing on me more. After more flushing/oiling and using its no longer gritty and its stropped up lovely after some enthusiastic use in the garden. I can see the attraction.
 
ed_is_dead said:
Was hoping you Schrade fans might be able to clue me in better on this fella.
Click to expand...

ed_is_dead said:
Can I ask what date range was the 881 produced until and where would you place it. Also, its hard to peg what the scales are, seems bone. Appreciate your knowledge guys thanks.

Btw I prefer it to my 80T, or I will do once it frees up a little.
Ps:can see no pivot pin on them so Swindon key then? How tough is this construction method over conventional (or not)?
Click to expand...

The Swindon-key had advantages and disadvantages iirc. It was quick to assemble and it held the knife tightly together, which is good. IF you put lateral force on the blade and forced the key to loosen up, you could not just re-peen the pin to tighten it up again, which is bad. When repairing them people drill through the key and install a regular pin.

The 881 you have is genuine bone, as far as I can tell. The 881 started out as the old Schrade Cut. Co. 8815 (and was also 8815 in the earliest Schrade Walden catalogs). The 881 was sold from 1952 until 1986. It was called the Premium Stock Knife, Texas pattern.
 
bladecollectorr said:
The Swindon-key had advantages and disadvantages iirc. It was quick to assemble and it held the knife tightly together, which is good. IF you put lateral force on the blade and forced the key to loosen up, you could not just re-peen the pin to tighten it up again, which is bad. When repairing them people drill through the key and install a regular pin.

The 881 you have is genuine bone, as far as I can tell. The 881 started out as the old Schrade Cut. Co. 8815 (and was also 8815 in the earliest Schrade Walden catalogs). The 881 was sold from 1952 until 1986. It was called the Premium Stock Knife, Texas pattern.
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Appreciate your time and knowledge Blade collector! Reading up on the Swinden key construction method and as you say it has pros and cons. I don't lever with my knives and usually use little force as I'm obsessed with keeping them sharp so they should be OK. All are tight still and the 881 has freed up lovely with regular oiling and opening.
 
Un-Chained said:
Shown prior, a variant Schrade made swinden-less model.
Basically made like a bone 1983 Heritage 8041 split-back whittler. These are pinned.
They’re out there, although somewhat scarce as they used the key system on almost everything since it’s inception.
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That's a fine Craftsman whittler!

As far as I can recall, all the 804-type split-back whittler knives had pivot pins. For some reason, Schrade never used the key system on this pattern. The Heritage series was released in 1983. This knife is an even earlier example (1982) made for the MWKC.

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ed_is_dead said:
Was hoping you Schrade fans might be able to clue me in better on this fella.








Can I ask what date range was the 881 produced until and where would you place it. Also, its hard to peg what the scales are, seems bone. Appreciate your knowledge guys thanks.
Btw I prefer it to my 80T, or I will do once it frees up a little.
Ps:can see no pivot pin on them so Swindon key then? How tough is this construction method over conventional (or not)?
Click to expand...

Your particular 881 is most likely in the range of late 1950’s to early 1960’s. That type of bone is associated with that period, some of us call it wavy bone but that’s a collectors term that wasn’t used by schrade. It was made right around the time schrade started transitioning to swinden, so you will see these wavy bone knives with swinden and with pins. Yours is likely swinden, based on the fact that your knife has quite a bit of use but pins have not shown in the bolsters. The shields also became glued around this time, you can easily see the residue on most of the wavy bone knives. I have seen several of these era knives with missing shields and they had no pin hole in the bone.

Augie said:
Added another sheepsfoot jack to the collection, a nice early Schrade Walden, no pattern number, looks to have had little use and may have factory edges.



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GREAT knife John.
 
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