Questions about Case steel history.

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philw

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Dec 2, 2004
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As a person who is new to this I was hoping that someone could fill me in on a couple of details about Case's use of steel. I have not been able to find the info in any of the knife books I have or have seen and a search didn't help either.
When did case start using stainless as their primary steel? Is Case phasing out CV? Are there any books/information available on recent Case production models? (last 20-30 years)
 
Phil

A little history;

As late as 1975, over 90% of the Case pocket and hunting knife line was CV. The transition to SS really happened gradually......but picked up steam starting in about 1982. By 1991 or so, the CV models made up maybe 15% of the line.

The number of CV models went up for awhile in the late 90's mainly because of the expansion of the yellow handle line, which used to be all CV. In recent years the number of both bone and yellow CV models has dropped...now there are maybe 7 CV bone models and maybe 8 CV yellow models, and all of the CV yellow models are also offered in SS.

Hope this helps
 
On e-bay I see a lot of Case model 6392 stockman knives for sale. Do you know if they were made with the cv or stainless? . I send e-mails to the dealers to ask them but they say they don't know. Is there any marking on the blades like they have today that indicates if they are cv or stainless? The dealers say that these knives were made in the 1970's.
 
pickupman said:
On e-bay I see a lot of Case model 6392 stockman knives for sale. Do you know if they were made with the cv or stainless? . I send e-mails to the dealers to ask them but they say they don't know. Is there any marking on the blades like they have today that indicates if they are cv or stainless? The dealers say that these knives were made in the 1970's.
Click to expand...


All 6392's will be CV unless they are SFO's or special factory orders....Case never made a "standard production" 6392 in stainless. And they did virtually no SFO's in the 70's....so a 70's 6392 will be CV.

Another way to tell....ALL Case pocket knives made in stainless steel in the 1940-1989 period will have either "STAINLESS" or "SS" in the tang stamping. Most will also have it at the end of the pattern # like 5279SS or 6347HPSSP.
 
The easiest way in telling when you call a dealer is to ask him/her if the knife is in a white or green box. White boxed Case's are CV and Green are SS. The white boxes have the carbon steel discliamer on them.
 
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