Real or Fake Case?

A

aronkovacs

Joined
Jun 13, 2018
Messages
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Hello all,
I’m in the market for a durable kitchen knife, and I purchased a case Chef knife. I’m looking at a Butchers knife that someone is selling on eBay. The person sells it for around $20 and it looks suspiciously new. It of the classic American series, at least it is marked as such and I find it to be cheap for something that had been discussed or something rare. The blade also does not have the double X markings associated with case knives. To my understanding all case knives must have the double X stamped into the blade. Is this true?
 
aronkovacs said:
Hello all,
I’m in the market for a durable kitchen knife, and I purchased a case Chef knife. I’m looking at a Butchers knife that someone is selling on eBay. The person sells it for around $20 and it looks suspiciously new. It of the classic American series, at least it is marked as such and I find it to be cheap for something that had been discussed or something rare. The blade also does not have the double X markings associated with case knives. To my understanding all case knives must have the double X stamped into the blade. Is this true?
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Welcome!
I would just steer clear of e-bay altogether for knives. If it seems too god to be true...
 
I believe I would steer away from that offer for a couple of reasons. First, CASE has a great system for tracking and identifying their traditional knives, but don't know if it extends to their kitchen ware. So you could spend a lot of time vetting that knife to make sure you were getting a CASE brand knife.

More important, those knives aren't all that hot. A few years ago on the traditional forum here (no, I didn't vet his research or opinion personally) that CASE jobbed out their kitchen ware to either Old Hickory or Chicago Cutlery. I would tend to believe it was Chicago Cutlery as both CASE and CC use three rivets on their handles, not two.

Regardless, these make good camp knives, knives to modify, knives to throw in a tool box, etc. For serious butchery and kitchen chores the CASE knives don't hold an edge well. On the other hand, they were NEVER expensive knives, but for their use they had their market. To me there are a lot better knives out there for a few bucks more and with some searching you can uncover them in discussions here on BF.

Robert
 
You can get a brand new 8" Case house hold cutlery chef's knife for about $36, and you can get a Dexter Russell or a classic series 8" chef's knife for under $30, and you can get an Ontario OLD HICKORY 8" chef's knife for under $20.
They're all well respected classic American made knives loved by those who own them.
They may not hold an edge forever, but anyone can get a razor edge on them with just a basic stone and maintain them easily on a steel.
 
It will be fine. Very few Case kitchen knives are collectible in the big money sense. I just ran the past Ebay pages, and not one fake was listed. Also if it was from the "Early Americans" line, it is still recent enough that there are lots of mint and near mint ones around.
 
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The Early Americans have an etch like this, and many of the other post WWII Case kitchen and butcher knives used a similar light etch -

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It is possible that the etch could have faded, worn off, or not totally been applied. There isn't enough money in Case kitchen knives to fake them. The average selling price of a later Case Butcher is around $25-35 in near mint to mint shape, so $20 isn't far off.
 
aronkovacs said:
Shouldn’t they have the XXstamped in the blade though?
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Not necessarily. tltt is right, there's no way or reason that there'd be fakes of these. It'd be possible that a knife might be misrepresented, ie: cleaned up and buffed to look newer and/or less used than it really is. Case stampings vary widely over the years and lines of knives.
 
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