Photos Who has a knife as old as they are. Traditional only.

Obsessed with Edges said:
I have a Case 3220 Peanut from the 1950-'64 era. It has a pattern stamp, which Case didn't do until 1950 and later.
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Not trying to distract from the thread. It's a small bit of nuance, but something I feel is worth sharing so that either others know or I can be corrected.

My understanding is that tested-era Case knives had pattern numbers, at least some of the time. But, starting sometime in 1949 every single Case knife has a pattern number stamped. So:
If a Case knife has a pattern number, this doesn't necessarily help you determine when it was made.
If a Case knife does not have a pattern number, it was made in 1949 or earlier.
 
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My closest knife in age to myself, at least to a date I can verify, is this Buck 103 from 1993. But, this old Woodcraft is at least 100 years old and still working as it should:

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No telling how old the flint axe is, but I wager it's older than any man alive. It still cuts just fine, and no rust!

HImTQ4Z.jpeg
 
lithicus said:
Not trying to distract from the thread. It's a small bit of nuance, but something I feel is worth sharing so that either others know or I can be corrected.

My understanding is that tested-era Case knives had pattern numbers, at least some of the time. But, starting sometime in 1949 every single Case knife has a pattern number stamped. So:
If a Case knife has a pattern number, this doesn't necessarily help you determine when it was made.
If a Case knife does not have a pattern number, it was made in 1949 or earlier.
Click to expand...
It's the combination of 2 things:
(1) the 'CASE' over 'XX' denoting the 'XX' era from 1940 - '64, and...
(2) the presence of the pattern number stamping, which narrows the range to 1950 - '64. The XX-era knives without a pattern stamping are known to have been produced in the earlier portion of that era (1940 -'49).

I can't speak to the Tested era knives (and I don't recall ever seeing pattern numbers stamped on those at all in any documentation of them). But for the XX era, it's easy to narrow it within the latter portion of that era by seeing both the 'XX' era tang stamping and the pattern stamping.

Edited to add:
(Regarding pattern numbers for Tested era knives and any other Case patterns pre-1949)
The below is a snap of text from the 'The Official Price Guide to Collector Knives', Fourteenth Edition, by C. Houston Price (2004). It would further imply that Case didn't stamp pattern numbers on many, if any knives, anytime prior to 1949.
X0W2f3p.jpg
 
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Obsessed with Edges said:
It's the combination of 2 things:
(1) the 'CASE' over 'XX' denoting the 'XX' era from 1940 - '64, and...
(2) the presence of the pattern number stamping, which narrows the range to 1950 - '64. The XX-era knives without a pattern stamping are known to have been produced in the earlier portion of that era (1940 -'49).

I can't speak to the Tested era knives (and I don't recall ever seeing pattern numbers stamped on those at all in any documentation of them). But for the XX era, it's easy to narrow it within the latter portion of that era by seeing both the 'XX' era tang stamping and the pattern stamping.
Click to expand...
Good info!
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
It's the combination of 2 things:
(1) the 'CASE' over 'XX' denoting the 'XX' era from 1940 - '64, and...
(2) the presence of the pattern number stamping, which narrows the range to 1950 - '64. The XX-era knives without a pattern stamping are known to have been produced in the earlier portion of that era (1940 -'49).

I can't speak to the Tested era knives (and I don't recall ever seeing pattern numbers stamped on those at all in any documentation of them). But for the XX era, it's easy to narrow it within the latter portion of that era by seeing both the 'XX' era tang stamping and the pattern stamping.
Click to expand...
Did Case manufacture "civilian" knives during WWII, or did all, or most, of their production switch to military orders during, say, 1942-1945? If so, that could further narrow the range of dates for XX-era pocket knives without pattern stamping, right?

- GT
 
5K Qs said:
Did Case manufacture "civilian" knives during WWII, or did all, or most, of their production switch to military orders during, say, 1942-1945? If so, that could further narrow the range of dates for XX-era pocket knives without pattern stamping, right?

- GT
Click to expand...
I honestly don't know if Case produced anything for the consumer market during WWII. I've always assumed they did to some degree, as the XX-era stampings on so many patterns would seem to imply at least some substantial production during that time. But again, that's just my assumption and I really don't know for certain.
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
It's the combination of 2 things:
(1) the 'CASE' over 'XX' denoting the 'XX' era from 1940 - '64, and...
(2) the presence of the pattern number stamping, which narrows the range to 1950 - '64. The XX-era knives without a pattern stamping are known to have been produced in the earlier portion of that era (1940 -'49).

I can't speak to the Tested era knives (and I don't recall ever seeing pattern numbers stamped on those at all in any documentation of them). But for the XX era, it's easy to narrow it within the latter portion of that era by seeing both the 'XX' era tang stamping and the pattern stamping.

Edited to add:
(Regarding pattern numbers for Tested era knives and any other Case patterns pre-1949)
The below is a snap of text from the 'The Official Price Guide to Collector Knives', Fourteenth Edition, by C. Houston Price (2004). It would further imply that Case didn't stamp pattern numbers on much, if any knives anytime prior to 1949.
X0W2f3p.jpg
Click to expand...
I will say this is quite surprising to me! While I did think it was generally accepted that any Case XX-era knife made after 1949 is guaranteed to have a pattern number (barring manufacturer error), I didn't think it was so widely agreed upon that all Case XX-era knives before 1950 are guaranteed to not have a pattern number. I will have to try to do some more research and see if I can make sense of the matter!

I guess I've been posting without including any pictures 😝 This is one of my favorite Case knives. It is definitely as old as I am, and it definitely has a pattern number! 😅
 
lithicus said:
I will say this is quite surprising to me! While I did think it was generally accepted that any Case XX-era knife made after 1949 is guaranteed to have a pattern number (barring manufacturer error), I didn't think it was so widely agreed upon that all Case XX-era knives before 1950 are guaranteed to not have a pattern number. I will have to try to do some more research and see if I can make sense of the matter!

I guess I've been posting without including any pictures 😝 This is one of my favorite Case knives. It is definitely as old as I am, and it definitely has a pattern number! 😅
Click to expand...
:thumbsup:

I could see, and to some degree even expect, that Case might've added special stampings in addition to the default tang stamp to some knives over their long history. They've done it quite a lot in more recent times. So, I wouldn't necessarily say none of the Tested era knives didn't include something extra for a stamping. The idea did occur to me that maybe, if they produced some prototype of a new pattern, that some test runs might've been specially stamped as such. So many of the posts I've seen here though, regarding the Tested era knives, were related to aksing for ID info regarding the specific pattern, in the absence of the pattern stamp on those knives. That's why I've generally assumed it wasn't included in the majority of their line prior to 1949.
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
It's the combination of 2 things:
(1) the 'CASE' over 'XX' denoting the 'XX' era from 1940 - '64, and...
(2) the presence of the pattern number stamping, which narrows the range to 1950 - '64. The XX-era knives without a pattern stamping are known to have been produced in the earlier portion of that era (1940 -'49).

I can't speak to the Tested era knives (and I don't recall ever seeing pattern numbers stamped on those at all in any documentation of them). But for the XX era, it's easy to narrow it within the latter portion of that era by seeing both the 'XX' era tang stamping and the pattern stamping.

Edited to add:
(Regarding pattern numbers for Tested era knives and any other Case patterns pre-1949)
The below is a snap of text from the 'The Official Price Guide to Collector Knives', Fourteenth Edition, by C. Houston Price (2004). It would further imply that Case didn't stamp pattern numbers on many, if any knives, anytime prior to 1949.
X0W2f3p.jpg
Click to expand...
I was born in 1951.
I have a CASE XX small "half-congress", pattern number 6269. Based on the info quoted, since it has a pattern number stamped on the tang, it was made in the 1950-1964 time frame. Assuming approximately equal numbers of this pattern being made throughout that 15-year span, I'd guess there's only about a 20% chance that my knife was made within a year of my birth year (1950-52, or 3 years out of 15), and an 80% chance that the knife is 2-13 years younger than me.



I'll probably come back with some other candidates later (including some knives that I KNOW are older than me, which I think is notable;)).

- GT
 
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