- Joined
- Mar 21, 2005
- Messages
- 3,355
I picked up this Camillus swell end jack at a knife show today. Measures 3.5, half stops on both blades, handles appear to be cocobolo. Mechanically it was probably the best older knife I handled today. The springs are almost entirely flush the whole way around. There's a very slight gap on one part of the main spring but other than that it's tight. Very nice walk & talk with good snap on both blades. The stock is fairly thin, as are the edges, and neither blade looks to have ever had much use. They sharpened up beautifully with minimal work and are now terrifying newsprint around the house. I was on a quest for a barlow but none that I saw really ticked all the boxes I wanted. This jack did so I decided to get it and put the barlow search on the back burner for now.
I do have a few questions though that Im hoping you guys can help me with, more for my own curiosity than anything else.
~ Does anyone know if this knife had a particular pattern or catalog number? I've looked through some older Camillus catalogs that were around the web in PDF but didn't see this one listed so far.
~ The wood on the mark side has a much different appearance than the pile side. The pile side just looks and feels like regular cocobolo with a straight grain. The mark side has much more figure to it. I figure its still cocobolo but, other than the shade, certainly not a match to the pile side in terms of looks. Is it possible the factory put a nicer looking piece of wood on the mark side?
~ Also, the mark side wood also has a much smoother finish and some chatoyance to it in certain lighting. The bolsters on that side dont have the same darkness of patina as the pile side. This causes me to think the mark side has been buffed at some point. Combining this with the difference in the wood pieces noted above do you think the mark side may have been rescaled?
Pics below were just some quick shots but they illustrate the differences in the wood to a fair degree.
Stamp on the secondary blade is the same as the first three lines of the one shown above. It lacks the fourth line of U.S.A.
I do have a few questions though that Im hoping you guys can help me with, more for my own curiosity than anything else.
~ Does anyone know if this knife had a particular pattern or catalog number? I've looked through some older Camillus catalogs that were around the web in PDF but didn't see this one listed so far.
~ The wood on the mark side has a much different appearance than the pile side. The pile side just looks and feels like regular cocobolo with a straight grain. The mark side has much more figure to it. I figure its still cocobolo but, other than the shade, certainly not a match to the pile side in terms of looks. Is it possible the factory put a nicer looking piece of wood on the mark side?
~ Also, the mark side wood also has a much smoother finish and some chatoyance to it in certain lighting. The bolsters on that side dont have the same darkness of patina as the pile side. This causes me to think the mark side has been buffed at some point. Combining this with the difference in the wood pieces noted above do you think the mark side may have been rescaled?
Pics below were just some quick shots but they illustrate the differences in the wood to a fair degree.
Stamp on the secondary blade is the same as the first three lines of the one shown above. It lacks the fourth line of U.S.A.
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I don't know who made it for HSB...
