Question on unusual sheath on a 15ot deerslayer

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winchester73

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Jan 6, 2008
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I just got a 15ot derrslayer. It came in the brown box with papers and a square sharpening stone. The knife is marked Schrade Walden NY USA on one side and 15ot pat pend on the other. The sheath is like any other I've seen for a deerslayer excepti it has rawhide lacing through the edges of it rather than being sewn and brown in color. Does this mean anything as far as a special run?
 
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Winchester,
Sounds like you got one of the 1st run sheaths for the 15OT
Check out this catalog/shortline from 1968.

www.collectors-of-schrades-r.us/Catalogs/images/1968-SW-CATS.pdf
and a flyer from 1966/7 showing the box too.

SW-66-1.jpg
 
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Yes it does Irv. Looks like I got a very old knife. It was still in the plastic wrapper in the box. I guess it must be old with the pat. pend. stamped on it. Wanted to see if it was sharp out of the box. It was, cut my finger when I touched the blade edge:). They made 'em back then. By the way the sheath still has that new leather smell after all these years.
 
G'day Winchester, That is an old set you have. Does it have serial number in addition to the Pat. Pending? I have the same set with Ted Williams etched on the blade...we know from Codgers' previous research that Baers applied for the 15OT design Patent on August 7th 1964...and the very earliest approx serial number to 10,000 were 1965/66 and the sheath was replaced with the new style 'rivet' sheath sometime in 1967....if yours has no Serial Number but has the Pat Pending AND the Waffle sheath then likely to be 66/67 manufacture...
There was an inherant design fault with the " laced Waffle imprinted sheath" because being single layer reconstituted leather used at that time the blade could quite easily slice through the border laces and did..so Schrade immediately inserted an aluminium and fibre sheath insert to help alleviate the design problem.Not only was it time consuming and cumbersome but when the Deerslayer knife was withdrawn the insert could come out with it!.......have a look with a torch down the bottom of your sheath and you may well see the whole shebang...and it will easily come out for you if you wish to have a look....For anyone interested I have 7 photos of the box,knife, sheath with the inserts <out> so you can see... on Larry V's site Schrades R Us Collectors Corner, Larry H Downunder.. page 17 of 18.
Larry may care to transfer a few photos here showing the inserts and the waffle sheath....
You have yourself a real find there Winchester I reckon Eric has a set as well as he also found the insert when I mentioned to look inside...
Hope this info helps...Hoo Roo
 
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And if you live in the U.S.A., please don't use a torch. Too much fire for the app. "Torch" is OZ for flashlight. lol.
 
Larry the knife does have a serial # which is 40898 and the sheath says genuine leather on the back of it. didn't know reconstituted leather was used back then, thought that was a Taylor invention used on his first China knives.It does seem to have an insert but not aluminum.The insert is facing the opposite side of the lacing. seems to be black rubber or plastic but again sheath says genuine leather and smells like leather. From the serial any idea of the knife's age?
 
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G'day Tongueriver....wish you blokes would talk proper English!.....you would still talk proper English if you blokes hadnt wapped the English Dragoons and kicked their 'fannies' in your highly successful battle for Independance..<the word Fanny is a word you cant use in Australia as it means something else not far removed.. so I love to use it on here!>......
Winchester, my serial Number is 10,957 and is very likely to be from late 65 early 66 I believe..and yours with serial number 40,898 is still very early production possibly late66 to mid 67 and before the rivet sheath design change in 67....somewhere in our archives Codger produced the actual numbers produced in those few years and also he displayed the original patent design as submitted by the Baers' for the 15OT in August 64....I'll have to do some more digging.......<the Kit Carson sheath and a lot of the Imperials all had other than full genuine leather sheaths....Taylor wasnt first with anything IMO....Hoo Roo
 
Larry that black insert has me wondering. Not aluminum as where you describe. Anything yoo can dig up on it?
 
Winchester, the whole insert isn't aluminum, just the blade edge side. Does your sheath have the stamped waffle weave pattern, or is it smooth?

Did you guys know that the initial 15OT's had glued handles with faux pins? Seems no one had used compression rivets on such a wide handle before (usually used on much thinner kitchen cutlery at the time). The male rivet usually spreads the female end enough to bind up against the holes in the tang, while still being able to pass through and tighten both scales. In the case of the 15OT, the male end wouldn't go all the way through, resulting in extremely loose handles. The quick fix was glue, until a remedy was found: Countersink both sides of the tang so that there wasn't so much surface area to bind up the rivets.

Eric
 
It is smooth not stamped waffle weave. The black plastic like material is on the opposite side of the rivet laced side. No insert on the laced side.
 
lrv said:
Winchester,
Sounds like you got one of the 1st run sheaths for the 15OT
Check out this catalog/shortline from 1968.

www.collectors-of-schrades-r.us/Catalogs/images/1968-SW-CATS.pdf
and a flyer from 1966/7 showing the box too.

SW-66-1.jpg
Click to expand...

Did anyone else notice that the flyer Larry posted states that all the knives on that page have "Meerschaum Bone" handles. I'm thinking this is pretty strong evidence that "Meershaum Bone" meant saw-cut delrin at that point in time.

What do ya think guys? Mystery solved?
 
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