Kabar Elephant toe

Ferahgo

Ferahgo

Gold Member
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Mar 6, 2014
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I am thinking of purchasing a Kabar Elephant toe. Does anyone have experience with this particular model from them? I would like to know all I can before I make a purchase. Also, if you have an Elephant toe from any brand, post a pic!
 
Hi there. If you havent owned a toenail you may want to buy a Rough Rider. They make a toenail and a sunfish, Marbles also makes a big toenail. They are all cheap but well made and they cut like crazy. It's a cheap way to try a pattern.
GEC makes a wonderful swell center toenail based on the Platts.
Best regards

Robin
 
I have a Ka-bar sunfish (equal-end) in jigged bone at home. I generally consider elephant toes to have differently-sized ends but the same broad spear (usually) master blade. I am a fan of the pattern and the Ka-bar I bought from the bay was extremely clean, but there was a little play on both blades which is one of my pet peeves (thankfully I didn't pay a lot). It's a pretty knife, though the dealer photos (which are the only ones I have access to right now) are horrendously dark. I've included the best one of each side here so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about, and I'll pull it out at home and get some better pics if it helps you.





I've got some decent 'fishes and elephant toes from other makers, even a fat sleeveboard or two that might work. I just want to make sure we're not stepping all over another related thread before I start posting them here. :D
 
If you are talking about the latest offering of the E Toe by Ka-Bar, these were made by Canal Street Cutlery as an SFO for Ka-Bar. These are very well made. Ka-Bar did make some back in the 80's, not sure about the quality on these.

Russell
 
Rusty1 said:
If you are talking about the latest offering of the E Toe by Ka-Bar, these were made by Canal Street Cutlery as an SFO for Ka-Bar. These are very well made. Ka-Bar did make some back in the 80's, not sure about the quality on these.
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Russell, judging from the tang stamp I've seen on the CSC-built Ka-bar copper knives (including the 3-4 copper Barlows I've handled personally), am I wrong to consider the possibility that the jigged sunfish I posted is one of theirs?

If so, I am doubly disappointed regarding the blade play considering the reputation CSC built for themselves. It's a sure looker, but with all that metal surface area for mating I would expect manufacturers with lesser names than CSC to be able to "stick the landing" and issue knives that are as tight as my Case and S&W-branded SFOs/NKCA club knives.

However, it would mean I own at least one CSC. :D
 
TsarBomba said:
Russell, judging from the tang stamp I've seen on the CSC-built Ka-bar copper knives (including the 3-4 copper Barlows I've handled personally), am I wrong to consider the possibility that the jigged sunfish I posted is one of theirs?

If so, I am doubly disappointed regarding the blade play considering the reputation CSC built for themselves. It's a sure looker, but with all that metal surface area for mating I would expect manufacturers with lesser names than CSC to be able to "stick the landing" and issue knives that are as tight as my Case and S&W-branded SFOs/NKCA club knives.

However, it would mean I own at least one CSC. :D
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Unfortunately your version is not one of the Canal Street models. I think yours is one from the 80's/90's. The CSC knife has only three pins with a bomb shaped shield right in the center of the handles.

Russell
 
Rusty1 said:
Unfortunately your version is not one of the Canal Street models. I think yours is one from the 80's/90's. The CSC knife has only three pins with a bomb shaped shield right in the center of the handles.
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Well, that would explain the flaws. It really is a pretty sunfish, I should probably just unleash it into the carry rotation, wobble be damned. Thank you for the information, Russell, would you happen to know who may have been responsible for it? It's okay if you say Bear & Sons, I won't feel too snookered. :p

While I'm picking through my boxes to find my favorite 'fishes and toes, here's a 1973 Case 6250 in that comforting 70s jigged wood straight out of my carry rotation...





Its 2-year-younger brother is dead mint and serves as a centerpiece of my Case display -- for whatever that might be worth right now... :o :cool:
 
A little fish 'n toe action. :p

From top to bottom: Case 5-dot 6250 (jigged wood), Ka-Bar sunfish (jigged bone), Case ROG62070 1989 NKCA club knife (Rogers jigged bone), Smith & Wesson 1998 anniversary sunfish (jigged bone), Smith & Wesson 1997 NKCA club knife (jigged bone) -- last 2 change spots in the final pic:







An NKCA club knife reference page attributed to Carl Bradshaw calls the Case in the middle a "sunfish" but in my eyes it would be best classified as a skinny-ish elephant toe, maybe a kind of hybrid between a toe and a classic sleeveboard. That master blade might even be oversized on a baby sunfish, though, it's quite broad and beefy. As for the S&Ws, they're both built on identical frames and (apparently) with identical scales, and the anniversary edition has a tang stamp indicating that it is a Taylor design but they certainly don't feel like any Taylor-built knives I've held before.

As established above, we still know next to nothing about the Ka-Bar. :D :D :D
 
cdtQ2m1.jpg
 
Some beautiful Cases there, wazu013! :thumbup: :thumbup: I really like the center 'fish with the scrolling and the stag right behind it. What year is the stag 'fish, anyway?

Thanks for sharing!
 
TsarBomba said:
An NKCA club knife reference page attributed to Carl Bradshaw calls the Case in the middle a "sunfish" but in my eyes it would be best classified as a skinny-ish elephant toe, maybe a kind of hybrid between a toe and a classic sleeveboard. That master blade might even be oversized on a baby sunfish, though, it's quite broad and beefy.
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:) That's me, that's my site! Glad to know someone has looked at it. I tend to agree, I wouldn't call that 1989 a sunfish, but I got all the knife descriptions from the NKCA, so I put down whatever they had originally listed them as back in the day.
 
Rookie82 said:
:) That's me, that's my site! Glad to know someone has looked at it. I tend to agree, I wouldn't call that 1989 a sunfish, but I got all the knife descriptions from the NKCA, so I put down whatever they had originally listed them as back in the day.
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Glad to meet you! :) I've referenced that site more than once chasing down various NKCA/NKC&DA knives. I've found it invaluable, and your efforts in putting it up are much appreciated. :thumbup:

I imagine NKCA might have used "sunfish" because of the economy of writing or saying the word thousands of times in lieu of "elephant toe" or "cross between elephant toe and sleeveboard". It's definitely odd man out with the coping blade and I'm glad someone assembled and hosted the site for posterity. Google searches seem to bring up a 50/50 split, mostly results by sellers on that big auction site calling it either/or, or sometimes both ("sleeveboard sunfish"?). This confusion is compounded by the fact that the Case pattern number "ROG62070" only brings up that one particular knife most everywhere you look. The "ROG" prefix is seen from time to time on other Case knives with that tan/blonde Rogers-jigged bone, but the 62070 pattern seems to exclusively reference this NKCA club knife. Even leaving out the "ROG" or going through Case reference lists turns up nothing but this knife.

Maybe it's a "unique sleeveboard sunfish" and we should leave it at that. :p
 
Stumbled across a miniscule amount of information on that #70 pattern by Case. They're out there... somewhere. :confused: :o

"The most recent Case knife manufactured knife with the pattern number 70 is a 4″ two-blade sleeveboard jack knife that many collectors call snowshoes. The master blade is a spear, and the other is a sheepfoot."

Snowshoe, now that's a good name for that knife.

Unfortunately one of the Case collector's guides doesn't seem to recognize the #70 pattern at all: https://books.google.com/books?id=f...pg=PA210#v=onepage&q=case #70 pattern&f=false
 
Sunfish- a very large knife quite capable of giving a pachydermal pedicure.
20140522_145917_zps96f6414f.jpg
 
TsarBomba said:
Some beautiful Cases there, wazu013! :thumbup: :thumbup: I really like the center 'fish with the scrolling and the stag right behind it. What year is the stag 'fish, anyway?

Thanks for sharing!
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The stag is a Case Classic from 1995.
Thanks for asking :thumbup:
 
All 1970's-1990's Kabar Elephant Toes done by Queen and Case
as the rest of the club knives a 1986 triplet set 1 0f 250

 
nutoknives said:
All 1970's-1990's Kabar Elephant Toes done by Queen and Case
as the rest of the club knives a 1986 triplet set 1 0f 250
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Awesome 'fish, nutoknives! :thumbup: :thumbup:

I briefly thought about Case when I sat my older "plain" 'fish next to the Ka-Bar -- on first glance the pin layout seemed similar -- but the blades and bolsters are different from pretty much every one I've seen on a Case. The Ka-Bar bolsters match the 3 you pictured here. Maybe these are all Queen builds?

Chasing down the factories responsible for some of our favorite knives is a fascinating endeavor, but it sure can be frustrating sometimes. :confused: It is pretty awesome how the collective knowledge of the porch can solve so many of these mysteries, in the end. :) Thanks for the information and for sharing!
 
Only sunfish/toenails I have are the large Rough Rider with smooth tobacco bone & acorn shield, and the white bone. I had the small Rough Rider sunfish/toenail, but did not care for it (too small) so traded it off.
 
TsarBomba said:
Glad to meet you! :) I've referenced that site more than once chasing down various NKCA/NKC&DA knives. I've found it invaluable, and your efforts in putting it up are much appreciated. :thumbup:

I imagine NKCA might have used "sunfish" because of the economy of writing or saying the word thousands of times in lieu of "elephant toe" or "cross between elephant toe and sleeveboard". It's definitely odd man out with the coping blade and I'm glad someone assembled and hosted the site for posterity. Google searches seem to bring up a 50/50 split, mostly results by sellers on that big auction site calling it either/or, or sometimes both ("sleeveboard sunfish"?). This confusion is compounded by the fact that the Case pattern number "ROG62070" only brings up that one particular knife most everywhere you look. The "ROG" prefix is seen from time to time on other Case knives with that tan/blonde Rogers-jigged bone, but the 62070 pattern seems to exclusively reference this NKCA club knife. Even leaving out the "ROG" or going through Case reference lists turns up nothing but this knife.

Maybe it's a "unique sleeveboard sunfish" and we should leave it at that. :p
Click to expand...

Yeah, the site was a labor of love. I couldn't find the info I wanted out there, so decided to put in the time, and talk to people, and then share the info with everyone who was interested. I originally hoped the content would be used on the official NKCA site, but that didn't pan out.

Now that you mention it, I do remember hearing the name Snowshoe somewhere. It definitely fits the bill for this pattern.
 
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