Vintage Case pens- estate sale score!

moonwilson

moonwilson

Joined
Aug 10, 2006
Messages
7,250
I have a good friend who deals antiques on Ebay as a side job. He spends all of his spare time rooting around at estate sales, looking for nice old things. Since he has become aware of my fascination with old knives, he keeps an eye out, and picks things up for me from time to time. I have been teaching him what to look for, and he's starting to get good at it. :thumbup:

This morning, he handed me what might appear to be a couple of rusted-out pieces of junk to the untrained eye. Here is what emerged after being cleaned up a bit with some oil.

OldCasepens.jpg


They are both Cases. Both are very slim, single-spring knives. The imitation pearl is a 9261 and the stainless is an M279. The tang stamp for the 9261 puts it at 1965-1969, but my information on the pattern says it was discontinued prior to 1964. So that's a bit of a mystery. It appears to be unused, but there is a good deal of pitting. I might be able to clean it up a bit more with Simichrome, but I'm hesitant to do so. The secondary blade is full, it is supposed to look like that. The snap on both blades is excellent. The imitation pearl has shrunk a bit, but overall, the knife is in pretty good condition. Liners are nickel silver. It is an elegant little thing, and obviously very well made.

The all-stainless pen has the 1970s tang stamp, but I can't tell how many dots there are. The scale covers that part of the tang, but close inspection shows at least four dots under there. There could be more. This pattern seems to be more common in bone, I need to do a little more research on it. The master blade appears to have been used, but not sharpened much. The pen blade is mint. Snap on both blades is excellent- the master blade snaps so hard it will bounce itself up if you don't have a good grip on the handle. It's a very cool little knife. Nice and slim, and also obviously well made.

Total cost for both knives? $5. Think I got a good deal? :D
 
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:thumbup: You done good.

Congrats on having someone act as another pair of eyes. We should all be so lucky ;). Just don't teach your friend too much. He might take a liking to 'em :D.
 
The 9261 was in production until the early 1970's...IIRC 1973 was the last year of production.

The M279 SS is indeed one of Case's patterns where the dots are hidden by the handle material. Early 70's examples will have mirror finished blades while the later ones will have glazed finish blades.
 
I love the 9261. That secondary blade is perfect.
I'd say you did pretty good!
 
Outstanding find!
Congrats!
 
Nice score, and nearly a gift!!
Nice going!
 
Thanks guys! I don't know if either of these old gents will ever see much pocket time again. They have been welcomed into the Moonwilson home for retired, formerly abused and wayward pocket knives. They will be gently cared for, and cradled in suede knife rolls for the rest of their days. They will be taken out regularly for admiration and oiling. My goal of collecting examples of all of the patterns Case has ever produced is two knives closer to completion! :thumbup:

These knives are interesting to me, because they represent a different era of knifemaking. Neither knife is particularly fancy, but they are both made to a higher standard than we are used to seeing nowadays. The parts are all crisp, they have not been tumbled or overly polished. They are so thin, and the blades nest so precisely! It's pretty amazing that the blades are still so snappy after all these years of being not-particularly-well-cared-for. Yeah, Case knew what they were doing when they made these knives. It's a shame that the imitation pearl has shrunk so much on the 9261, I bet it felt nice in the hand when it was first made. It is light as a feather, yet clearly capable of some serious cutting.

Actually, they were a gift. My friend paid the $5, I paid nothing. :D He has picked up quite a few old knives for me recently, these are just the first Cases, hence the most interesting to me. He also got me an OLD Solingen Wadsworth punch stockman that I need to put in the old knives thread. That thing is a beauty. Actually, I probably need to start a thread in Levine's forum about that knife, because I can't find any information about it. It seems to be made to the same high standard as many of the old Sheffield knives, with swoopy, crisp grind lines. :thumbup:

I repay my buddy by picking up cool toys for his kids when I travel, and for handling tricky jobs at work for him from time to time.
 
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