Question on Schatt & Morgan (Queen) 2003 vintage

sceva

sceva

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I like smaller pen knives and this Schatt & Morgan office knife ( circa 2003) caught my attention. It is currently on it's way to me curtesy of a trade/purchase with a fellow Bladeforums member.

It's (I believe) Keystone Series XIII from 2003 and has Mammoth ivory scales ( Interior??) and it WILL be carried as part of my EDC collection.

I have never used ivory before, either Mammoth or other
My questions;
Any special care other than a coat of Ren wax?
Was the Mammoth Queen used for these pretty solid?
Is it Alaskan, Siberian, other and does it matter?

Thanks

prerequisite pictures

Office Knife 5.jpeg Office Knife 6.jpeg
 
In the original ad for it Queen states it is wooly mammoth in one place and mastadon in another. That’s two different animals. At that time in its history, Queen wasn’t always accurate in its product description. I have a Schatt from that period and one “expert” tells me it is ATS34 and another says 420hc...but it’s a sweet knife.
 
I never noticed that but looked again and of course, you are correct.

Pretty sure it's Mammoth
 
Could be left over elephant ivory but they couldn't say due to the law :)
 
I have no doubt that it is Mammoth.

I took some photos. There was a dark line at one end of the pile side that might or might not have been a tight crack. Put some crazy glue on it just in case. Lightly hand sanded with 600 grit then ultrafine scotchbrite and hand polished with autosol 1000 grit polish ( similar to simichrome) for some reason at just the one end it lightly stained during the polish from the pin or bolster and wouldn't clean off; must have absorbed a little. Not bad and I can live with it though. This one is going into my EDC rotation and will see regular use.

The mammoth looked fairly plain at first but the grain / pattern / character is showing up with handling. Actual color not as dark as these show.

Office knife 7.JPG Office knife 8.JPG

Here it is after carrying and handling it for a while; Looking better. Color is not as white as these show, it's kinda between the first photos and these

Office Knife 13.JPG Office Knife 15.JPG
 
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From Handling, the stain has faded and the pattern in the mammoth is showing itself more. I'm liking this. The knife is a little creamier colored than the photos show, for some reason they came out whiter than it actually is.
I removed some of the original photos and added new ones to the first post.
 
Ivory will patina like good carbon steel. If you use it, you hand oils will age it. Face oil will also.
 
Very interesting, and nice knife.
I've never seen an office knife with bolsters, and I've never seen one without an ink eraser blade either.

It makes me wonder if whoever designed this particular S&M example actually knew what an office knife really was ?
It seems like they thought they were nothing more than a pen knife with ivory style scales and the words office knife on it ?
 
It's the same knife as the S&M Senator except for pinched bolsters, the marking and the handle material so yes, they just called it Office knife. The Flyer actually says "Equal end senator pattern with ancient woolly mammoth handles and "Office Knife" lasered design"

Flyer.jpg
 
Hickory n steel said:
Very interesting, and nice knife.
I've never seen an office knife with bolsters, and I've never seen one without an ink eraser blade either.

It makes me wonder if whoever designed this particular S&M example actually knew what an office knife really was ?
It seems like they thought they were nothing more than a pen knife with ivory style scales and the words office knife on it ?
Click to expand...

There's a lot of vintage "Office" that look similar. Often the blades are worn down.
 
sceva said:
It's the same knife as the S&M Senator except for pinched bolsters, the marking and the handle material so yes, they just called it Office knife. The Flyer actually says "Equal end senator pattern with ancient woolly mammoth handles and "Office Knife" lasered design"

View attachment 1503987
Click to expand...

They seem to have their proboscideans mixed up. In the upper section they say mastodon, in the lower section they say woolly mammoth.

With such beautiful ivory, it is more likely to be mammoth; there have been large numbers of well preserved mammoth tusks found in the arctic tundra of Alaska and Siberia (most tusks are from Siberia), but not so many mastodon tusks. Mastodons were strictly North American and did range into Alaska, but that was before the most recent ice age. They also ranged across northern Canada, but I doubt it was after the most recent ice age because they died out before the Laurentide ice sheet that covered Canada fully melted. Woolly mammoths were found across a huge range at the end of the most recent ice age. In the lower 48, mastodons were quite common in the northeastern US - Great Lakes states especially - and were spread all across the continent. But well preserved mastodon tusks are rare because most of them were not buried in permafrost or in anoxic bogs. The same is true for Columbian mammoths, which were found across the lower 48 except the northeast US. They were larger than the woolly mammoth, but their tusks are also not very well preserved because they were not buried in permafrost.

As an aside, the river that runs through the valley where I grew up (Big Flats, NY) is called the Chemung river. Chemung is based on the Delaware name for the river, and roughly translates to river of the big horn. The Delaware called it this because of the tusks (both mastodon and woolly mammoth) that washed out of the banks.
 
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brownshoe said:
There's a lot of vintage "Office" that look similar. Often the blades are worn down.
Click to expand...
From what I've always understood the office knife pattern traditionally has an ink eraser blade , with that blade being what makes it actually different from a standard pen knife.

I am probably wrong, but the only examples I've seen otherwise were more modern reproduction types where they used the Office knife design without knowing the difference.
 
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I believe also that the traditional Offfice knife did have a pen blade and an ink eraser. I am sure that Queen knew that and they just chose to mark the 2003 Series XIII offering this way to set it apart from their other Senator offerings.
 
If you do a search on Vintage Folding Office Knife, you'll find some similar knives, Keen Kutter, Remington, WH Morley & Sons, Winchester.... None have an ink erasar blade.
 
brownshoe said:
If you do a search on Vintage Folding Office Knife, you'll find some similar knives, Keen Kutter, Remington, WH Morley & Sons, Winchester.... None have an ink erasar blade.
Click to expand...
I personally wouldn't consider them true office knives then, maybe that's just me.
 
Interesting, looks nothing like the blade on a fixed blade ink eraser. I've seen these Office knives mainly at flea market/antique malls. Never noticed anything that made me think it was an ink eraser. Did it originally have a type of chisel grind?
 
I don't know myself. I suspect it was similar to a spey blade with a sharper point to scrape fine detail.

Here is another listing from Keen Cutter I found that is practically the same knife as the Winchester. I see they call it an eraser point.


 
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