New tooling? Contract work?

[silenthunterstudios]

A friend of mine, who is of part Iroquois ancestry and has many friends on the Cherokee reservations in the south and has spent much time there, gifted a knife to me several years ago. The knife is one of the Trail of Tears trappers, from Cherokee cutlery.

I got a big box catalog in the mail recently, guess what I saw?

Same stamp, same blade configuration, same pattern of knife. The Cherokee model was made in China, the Case is made in the USA.

I do not normally buy these types of knives, but because it is the Trail of Tears, and because of my friend, I would like to get one. Has anyone seen these in person? I'm just interested in how Case got the artwork and lettering exactly the same, from a Chinese manufacturer. Nothing untowards, I don't imagine, just interested how they got the artwork.

 

[pertinux]

Well, if you play the above as a "spot the differences" game, there are actually several changes made between the two (sets of) stamps.

Yet clearly the same "design."

(Interesting find, on both counts.)

~ P.

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

I'm noticing the artwork, though extremely similar, isn't exactly identical. The warrior's portrait faces to the right on the Cherokee, to the left on the Case. And the number of teepees displayed on the secondary blades is different (3 on the Case, and 2 on the Cherokee).

Some artists license their work independently, and to multiple vendors simultaneously. Turns up a lot on things like coffee mugs and t-shirts. This 'Trail of Tears' artwork might be such an example. I seem to remember seeing a thread somewhere on BF quite some time back, displaying examples of identical Scrimshaw designs from one artist being marketed on multiple brands of production cutlery (think one of them was Buck; might've seen the thread in that sub-forum).


David

 

[rma100]

It could be that both knives were made as SFO's for the same Distributor. A certain major retailer in Tennesee has tens of thousands of knives manufatured in China that carry the Rough Rider Brand,among other brands. The same Retailer frequently gets SFO Knives from Case. Just look at their Catalog and see the Case "Exclusives" they are marketing. These are SFO's.