Post your 165's!

Here is a rare one. Can anyone guess why? Codger will explain all. :) But give it your best guess first.

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She's in excellent condition and appears to have the original finish on the blade. But that isn't what our friend is asking that makes this knife so uncommon. By the way I am tickled to death that he landed this one. It deserved a good appreciative home as an excellent survivor example.
 
I want to say that it's the serial number on the tang. But I know little about these knives. Is that rare or usual? It IS an outstanding knife!
 
Should'nt the tang stamp be on the left for the SW 165?

If its not the tang stamp, the blade and grind looks slightly different for some reason than many other 165's I've seen.
 
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The shield is on the same side as the tang stamp and it has a serial number?
 
Some pretty close hits! The grind however is fairly typical for the early SW knives though. Most of it was done by hand one at a time and they did vary slightly in length etc. Grinds became more uniform later.
 
tongueriver said:
Here is a rare one. Can anyone guess why? Codger will explain all. :) But give it your best guess first.
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The first thing I noticed was the location of the serial number on the tang as opposed to the finger guard. Secondly, the grind appears to be a hollow one between the belly and tang? :)
 
Here is serial #18282, a batch companion to the above knife, #18379.

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And here is the earliest I have yet seen, serial #00009.

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And here is a later one in that same sequencing scenario. So how did that in-betweener show up with the serial # on the RIGHT SIDE?

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And then, not too many serials later, serializing ended but the tang stamp remained on blade right through the end of the Schrade Walden mark to the use of the Schrade name through the end of the pattern in 1991. By the way, on this pattern I have never seen the serial stamped on the guard face.
 
Things that make you go hmmmmmmmm.

All that being revealed I still believe that grind on tongueriver's 165 is one of the most unique I've seen, in a word sweet.
 
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Ballenxj said:
That was just a wild guess on my part. I'm not nearly as familiar with the 165 as some of you are. :o
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And for a person who hasn't specialized in collecting and studying this pattern, not a bad guess. The 153UH Golden Spike did have the guard serialized. And the 171UH I think? But not the 165OT/UH.
 
I have several knives like Pygmalion's above, NIB in the sliptop box like I showed with my #18282. So this, along with the close serial numbers being discussed, suggests that this all happened in a short time period prior to the end of serializing which was also prior to the name change yet coincides with the switch of marks from the traditional blade left to blade right.

Naturally since none of us were there, we can only speculate how this happened, but here is my best guess:

Most manufacturing change orders are done without interrupting production. These are called "running changes". Often there will be a number of pieces "in process" with the older style process order when the new components or dies arrive inhouse and a brief trial run of the new ECO is made prior to a complete changeover. Thus a number of blades were stamped blade right while blade left stamped pieces were still in process. These new pieces were salted into production before the start of the second ECO eliminating serializing. Thus serials were added blade right briefly to these pieces chronologicly with using up the older EO pieces. When all of the older pieces were finished and shipped, the new ECO went into full production (blade right, no serial). As I have examples of both in the same slip top box, same papers, sheaths etc., this happened in a short time frame resulting in this oddity on only a few knives during transition. Far more are seen with blade right markings and no serial. So the subsequent ECOs came down shortly thereafter, being the change of guard mold and tang stamp change to Schrade (1973-1991) in place of Schrade Walden (1966-1972). This is based on examples I have seen and own, not on actual engineering change orders, since I have never seen those internal documents.
 
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