F.A.Q. Your Questions Answered.
Search for your question in our database of common questions listed below. Can’t find the answer to your question there? No Problem! Send us an email using our contact form and we will get in touch with you to help answer any question(s) you might have.
Why don’t all the knives show tang stamps or prices or some other information?
First, the Blademaster points out that the minimum information available on any knife in the data base is more than is typically found in any other source!
The Blademaster started this project in 1976, as a much younger collector. His first steps were to gather all the Case catalogs available, and begin gathering information on folding knives. At the time he had no idea what would be involved. But his goal was simple: gather more information on Case knives than had ever been assembled, and then publish a book. When there were 8,000 knives in the data base he printed out the current information, and it took 2700 pages–too much for a book. (There are currently almost 14,000 folding knives in the data set.)
Starting with the catalogs gave the Blademaster the typical information: model number, year and general handle material. But as the project evolved, another goal became clear: try to define as precisely as possible as many variations as possible in order to give the collector confidence that a knife was authentic, and had not been tampered with. With the increasing number of modern variations, this will be increasingly important as the years pass.
In order to achieve this maximum practical precision, additional pieces of information were added over the years, like the tang stamp images, or the correct box picture, whether a knife was a commemorative, whether it was made for a knife club and so on. This made it necessary to actually hold, look at and check each knife against the data base. This turns out to be extremely difficult, sometimes making even the Blademaster tired.
Here’s an example, when the catalogs were finished, there were no prices. So he began to add them, but the Blademaster wanted his prices to reflect what knives actually sold for, so none of the prices were estimated. The Blademaster also wanted to show things like price trends, so every price found appears. In addition, the Blademaster began to accumulate prices on used knives as well as mint knives, since the preponderance of old mint knives are seldom seen compared to used knives.
The result: one knife might have four prices while the next knife you see doesn’t have any.
Further, in an online auction, a knife might show a sale price and a picture of the front tang stamp only. These two pieces of information would be added, but the model number stamp on this variation would still be missing.
So some data is not there, because the Blademaster hasn’t seen this knife or found a price for it yet. But you can help solve this problem for other collectors. Click on the contributors link in the left column to see how.
Why doesn’t my handle look like the picture?
The most difficult problem with classifying Case knives is the handle material. In the early years, there might be a red bone handle, a green bone handle, walnut, stag, pearl, Roger’s bone and a couple of composition and celluloid handles. Today the Blade master has identified over 500 different named bone handles. The real problem with the handles is not that there is a boat load of variations, it is that the bone does not always take the dye consistently. The result is that some of the early green bones are almost yellow. Some of the modern black bone handles are mostly white or grey, and so on. Some of the standard jigging looks like peach seed jigging and vice versa.
Further, Case will frequently give a handle a new name, when the color is extraordinarily close to an existing named handle.
While the Blademaster has labored strenuously on your behalf to get these as close as possible, the true result is that the data set picture you are looking at ought tolook fairly close to your handle with the same name, but in truth they may be darker or lighter, the jigging may vary slightly, and so on.. catalogs were finished, there were no prices. So he began to add them, but the Blademaster wanted his prices to reflect what knives actually sold for, so none of the prices were estimated. The Blademaster also wanted to show things like price trends, so every price found appears. In addition, the Blademaster began to accumulate prices on used knives as well as mint knives, since the preponderance of old mint knives are seldom seen compared to used knives.
The result: one knife might have four prices while the next knife you see doesn’t have any.
Further, in an online auction, a knife might show a sale price and a picture of the front tang stamp only. These two pieces of information would be added, but the model number stamp on this variation would still be missing.
So some data is not there, because the Blademaster hasn’t seen this knife or found a price for it yet. But you can help solve this problem for other collectors. Click on the contributors link in the left column to see how.