Pattern vs steel? That's my question...

The mini copperhead shown above is a great little knife, but it's another step down from the minitrapper in terms of size, despite being only 1/4 or 3/8" shorter, I forget.
 
After a couple weeks of serious and constant deliberation with myself I decided to buy the warncliff and antique bone like the one black mamba posted. I went to pick it up and walked out with a yeller cv peanut. It just felt better in the hand so I went with it. If I regret it I'll go back and get the mini trapper. Everyone "needs" a yeller peanut anyway right?
 
Not an expert on either steel nor patterns, but I go with what I like. If the pattern does not look good and feel good in the hand, the blade steel does not matter -- as I am not going to use the blade. It has to make it into my pocket for the steel to matter.

I suspect that heat treat and blade geometry are much more important than steel until you need to wring the very last amount of performance out of a blade. I have knives from Case in both CV and Tru-Sharp. I prefer the CV for everything but food prep, so the CV Medium Stockman is often with me. But I did not turn down a Seahorse Whittler because the blades are Tru-Sharp.

That being said, when I get a choice of steel in a pattern I like, I choose the steel based on what I plan to do with the knife and how it slices in that application.
 
I'm no steel connoisseur. Usually, I choose a knife by the way it looks over the steel in the blades--both for traditional and modern designs. I really love Queen and their Schatt & Morgan knives. A Queen in D2 or a Schatt & Morgan in stainless looks classy. I love Buck knives. Their stainless 301 is a classic utility knife that never looks dated. But when it comes to Case knives, I will always go for the CV. I own a few stainless Case models but I never seem to warm up to them. The reason for this preference is because I view W.R. Case as the most traditional of traditional US knife makers and carbon steel is the most traditional of traditional blade materials. A Case knife with a well worn and stained blade looks right. A Case knife with a worn stainless blade just looks scratched.
 
So, have you thought about the regular case copperhead? It's a touch less than 4" in length. Can be found in both a wharni/pen and clip/wharni combo. Sorry, no pics. I've only seen them in cases usual stainless. But I've never had a problem with regular case stainless taking an edge.
 
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