Schrade Walden 15OT Ted Williams

T

theedgeajb

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Jan 29, 2008
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I've read some threads about "Old Timer Knives" that have made me pretty excited about the knife I found in a Used/Military Surplus store.

Can anyone give me more information about my new knife? Date manufactured... quality... value.. I'm not looking to sell just now though.

On blade right theres the "Schrade Walden" inscription above N.Y. U.S.A. On the other side it says 15OT PAT. PEND. and serial number 06312.

There is also a light engraving of "Ted Williams" along the right side of the blade.

Any Schrade Old Timer fanatics out there?
 
There are one or two of us, I suppose. :D
Sears bought the 15OT early on, so it isn't uncommon to see the pending mark on it. Williams became their sporting goods spokesman in 1961.
Here is my research on the 15OT showing when the patent issued.

The 15OT was first introduced in 1964 and produced continuously for thirtyfour years, a third of a century. It was produced for ten years as Schrade Walden (1964-73), then for twentyfour as Schrade (1974-97).

Deerslayer has serpentine shaped brown sawcut delrin handles held to the full tang by three nickle silver flat head rivets, and a 1 1/8" nickle silver Old Timer shield. A promenant choil on the tang in front of the handle acts as a lower guard and protects the fingers from the sharpened blade. A grooved, raised thumb rest on the top of the tang aids in blade control for finer work. The 6" full tang blade is flat ground 1095 carbon steel. A really stiff blade, the bladestock is nearly 3/16" thick. The tip is upswept. As with other early Old Timers, there are some small distinctions between the Walden knives and the later ones. These are relatively minor engineering changes, but help to distinguish the chronology of production. Earliest production was marked with a "PAT. PEND." blade etch briefly, then added to the lefthand tangstamp. Perhaps this led to some complications with production and stocking the 15OT's. The early Walden 15OT's were serialialized on the left tang perpendicular to the blade beginning sometime before the patent issued in April of '64. The first tangstamps were applied to both sides of the tang perpendicular to the blade, with SCHRADE-WALDEN over NY USA on the right, and 15OT PAT. over PEND. on the left.

Sometime before 1974, the entire tangstamp was moved to blade right. Later Ellenville blades have the tangstamp on blade right, but parallel to the thumb rest and angled to the blade reading SCHRADE over USA 15OT. Occasionally a blade will be seen with the stamp in front of the thumbrest parallel with the blade, but this is far less common.

Limited editions, private issues, and the "UH varient" usually have a tangstamp of SCHRADE+ over USA LTD., and often used a 440C stainless blade. These editions sometimes sported the upgrade Staglon handles and brass flat rivets, special etches, and on the later issues, laser cutouts in the blade just in front of the tang. One edition has been seen with a fancy filed blade spine. The thumb rest grooves were deleted on this edition as well.

One very early private issue bearing the Patent Pending stamp had a Ted Williams signature etch showing that it was produced early in '64 for Sears Roebuck & Co. It had no other special features beside the leather laced basketweave tooled sheath and insert. Several subsequent Sears issues have been found with CRAFTSMAN USA tangstamps both left and right.

Another special issue is the 15OTO knife with hunter orange handle and LIMITED EDITION shield. It may have been comissioned by Smokey Mountain Knife Works in 1991 for inclusion in their "father and son" hunting sets with the 165OTO DEERHUNTER, 152OTO LIMITED EDITION, and 158OTO with an Old Timer shield.

Several sheath designs have been found so far and, as usual, not really enough of a sampling to establish an accurate chronology. One used in 1964-65 was a basketweave tooled tubular sheath with long belt hanger, and laced with leather laces. This was the fanciest sheath, but it had a problem. The long sweeping knife blade tended to cut the leather laces. Factory engineers solved this temporarily by adding an aluminum rimmed fiber sheath insert. This was too expensive to continue and the sheath was redesigned with the tooling deleted and six eyelets added to protect the laces. The most common, naturally is the later sewn tubular with five rivets protecting the stitches. This style continued pretty much through the remainder of production.

Early success of the 15OT inspired Schrade to issue an Uncle Henry version of the knife. I do not know when the UH version was made, but I do not believe it was a cataloged edition, and it bore the SCHRADE+ over USA LTD tangstamp. My interest in these knives, though discontinued eight years now and made by a company no longer existing, began more than thirty years ago when I purchased a 165OT for my hunting and camping adventures. The serpentine handle and heft of the 15OT are reminiscent of the familiar 165OT. The long choil is mimicked on the 152OT. The massive 15OT knife is a favorite of many "old timer" hunters of large game, yours truly included.

Ducks Unlimited Canada DUC15OTF - In 2001-2002 Ducks Unlimited Canada ordered a special 15OT for their Hallmark knife. Using the 15OT pattern blade, they added filed spine, Uncle Henry style Staglon handle covers with a coined antiqued brass DU shield and lanyard hole near the butt, and letters “CI” lasered through the blade. This order was for 55 pieces.


Michael
 
WOW Codger, what a fabulous answer. you are a historian by heart for sure if not by trade. roland
 
Here are a couple of shots with the original sheath (has the protective insert that was made to save the leather stitching from being cut):
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Eric
 
This draft of the 15OT research is all I could recover after my hard drive got wiped a while back. It contains a few glaring errors and omissions. The knife received a design patent. It was issued to Henry Bodenheim Baer in November,1965, not 1964.

The broaching dies changed several times over the span of production so that not all knives have the same number of grooves on the thumb rest.

The fiber sheath insert should have an aluminum tip on it. Check down inside the sheath to see if it got stuck there and pulled off the insert.

xp4yll.jpg
 
G'Day Theedgeajb, Thats an extremely low production number so knife is over 40 years old! Well Done! I just got a minty Ted Williams 15OT with original sheath Ebay# 300195298837 for $66.55 which I thought was great value for a knife of that era.
A tip with finding quite rare knives on Ebay I have found with much less bidding competition where they are not listed under traditional Schrade Heading, is to have Favourites Search 'Old Timer Sheath Knife'.This has unearthed some great buys for me because like this knife it was listed under 'custom manufactured' and the words 15OT, Schrade, or Deerslayer did not appear anywhere in heading or text however the word Old Timer was used once in text and 'voila' it comes up in the search and I would never have found it any other way.
Fantastic research again Michael..I think everything you have stated is downloaded/printed and in my now huge Schrade binder file in individual and indexed plastic covers. When I see a knife I knew little about I can bid with some authority thanks to you. Hoo Roo from Downunder.
 
Thawk, it says fig.1 through fig.4 reading from the bottom up. Pretty bizarre font.
 
thawk said:
What are those hieroglyphic markings near the blade on the patent?
Click to expand...

Yes, "FIG", one of the archaic fonts used by patent illustrators. These were hand drawn with India ink on Bristol paper. I are one.

Sorry it takes me so long to find requested archived photos, but when my computer got wiped, Larry Vickery helped me recover the ones I had online. Alas, they all lost their associated file names and I have to search through nearly 4,000 pictures one at a time to find what I am looking for. I am resorting and labeling them as I can.

15yuszr.jpg
 
ea42 said:
Thawk, it says fig.1 through fig.4 reading from the bottom up. Pretty bizarre font.
Click to expand...

LOL - I Did not look at it from the correct angle. Being an ex newspaper and typesetting guy, I like that font.

Damn Michael, sorry to read about your computer woes. That does suck.
 
I lost three years worth of photo archives and my writings as well. I am recovering/rewriting, so while it was a setback, it wasn't the end of the world.

Here is the original package for the early 15OT Ted WIlliams knife Sears number #10600 from 1964..

25tw6c5.jpg
 
O.K., should have searched H-15 first. different knife, perhaps less common than 15OT ? roland
 
rprocter said:
O.K., should have searched H-15 first. different knife, perhaps less common than 15OT ? roland
Click to expand...

Certainly hard to find one with nice leather banded handle. I've seen some pretty nice oneds displayed on the forum. They were real pretty knives.
 
Further to my above post Ebay #300195298837 the Ted Williams 15OT arrived today and its just like it left the factory in April 1964? Absolute mint complete with fibre insert plus the quite intricate aluminium tip protector attached to insert as Codger said above to protect from cutting sheath. I can see why they changed the design with having to play around making that tip protector. ..what an afterthought it is!I will put the whole deal on my corner of Larry's website for posterity! Serial No 10957 so produced very close to Erics' fine example above which looks like its Serial 10318.Codgers' example above is 10600 so all produced same time frame production run?
Roland re those H15's they were out there in abundance in 2002 when I started seriously collecting Schrade knives...lots,particularly fixed blades used to go through Ebay without even bid...SNIFF...SNIFF... none of us knew then what would happen in 2004.at least I managed to get some and the irony was I used to pay more for the postage to Oz than I paid for each knife. Ahhh... 2002/2003 would you believe snipers didnt exist and you could safely place a bid 1 or 2 days before or place a bid and go off to work knowing you invariably would get the item! I used to get miffed if a bid was placed by someone within 24 hours of auction closing...but then 6 years ago only die hards were really interested in collecting USA Schrades....folks mostly bought as EDU's not collector pieces IMHO. Hoo Roo
 
Congrats Larry, sounds like a beaut! With those numbers it's possible all three of ours were made in the same week :eek::D:D. Thanks for reminding me about that tip protector, it was lodged in the bottom of the sheath. What an odd piece of metal (aluminum?). You're right about the afterthought part, I think I'd feel a little uncomfortable having my blade constantly slide against it, but it's still pretty cool having a 15OT that was produced when they were still working the kinks out;):D. Now if we could only find a few of those boxes(and not pay $75 for them!).

Eric
 
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