Schrade Walden Red Bone

[thawk]

In between the peachseed bone stag era, and the jigged Delrin handles, Schrade Walden produced jigged bone that has the same jiging style as the Delrin "Open Stock" series. I believe this was in the mid 1950's. I've found a few of these, with the latest being a Schrade Walden 233, 3 5/16" jack.

Here it is lined up with my other two, an 880 KON-KAV, and an 825 SS

It falls into the lovely bone category. Sometimes hard to tell from Delrin if pictures aren't real clear. All three have a crocus polished front side master, and glazed finish on the other blade surfaces. Makes it tough to get a good picture sometimes.

 

[Upstream]

They are some nice bone handles. They must be early Schrade Waldens, with the polished mark side.

 

[Rusty1]

Very appealing is that Style of jigging. Very nice or should I say an exceptional trio Hal. Congrats on finding them.

I think this 225 constitutes the same bone......I have shown this before.

Russell

 

[rprocter]

Was the "peachseed" jigging done in-house or by the bone supplier ? Does anyone know why Schrade-Walden stopped using P-S jigged bone ?
roland

 

[thawk]

Was the "peachseed" jigging done in-house or by the bone supplier ? Does anyone know why Schrade-Walden stopped using P-S jigged bone ?
roland

Roland, this is a cross forum quote from Eric over in AAPK. Apparently Schrade did produce the peachseed jigging, and I believe even invented the machine that did it. At least I think I recall reading that once upon a time.

At any rate, I feel like these red bone handles were the original rendition for most of the jigged delrin open stock handles that were made in the 1960's and 1970's.

Hal, those are some beautiful knives!!

Schrade made there own bone handles until the government started requiring a permitting process, licensing, etc for aquiring bone, plus regulations for disposing of used dye and other solvents also became too costly. They decided to go with Rogers bone Co out of Connecticut for their handles sometime in the fifties I think. Rogers didn't have enough capacity for all the extra volume, so Schrade sent them their dying vats, which were gas heated. It was one of these vats that caused the fateful fire that destroyed the factory. I think it was the day after the fire that the unknowing Schrade management called and asked when their handle order would be ready, to which Rogers replied "When we rebuild the factory!"

Of course that turned out to be the end of the Rogers era for some time, and Schrade had to make the hasty decision to go with other materials, finally settling on delrin, for their handles. Initially the intention was to make all the Schrade Walden knives bone handled. This was to be the distinction between them and the Ulsters and Imperials. Unfortunately fate dealt a lousy hand.

 

[rprocter]

Thank you Hal & Eric. Now i know why S-W made such a dramatic switch over to plastic handles.
roland

 

[Dave Thinkstoomuch]

Sometimes hard to tell from Delrin if pictures aren't real clear.

Really nice trio Hal! You do indeed have the eye for those. I on the other hand have a tough time distinguishing bone versus delrin and I'm always afraid to pull the trigger on knives like these. Keep posting the great pics and one of these days I will have it down.