Schrade 152OT Sharpfinger

[Codger_64]

Nice find Codger, It look like there still about.

I still want to know the whosit and whatsit of particularly the obscure Sharpfinger special and limited editions. So I'll keep looking and asking!

 

[Codger_64]

Here is one from way back that I never found a satisfactory answer to.

Henry Baer's 75th birthday? That would have been 1975. Perhaps Eric will see this and know some Old Timer to ask? I see two hints of the timeline here. First, the black gift box did not replace the tan "parchment" box until 1979. And the sheath was redesigned to the SAS-17 in 1983. So that is a four year window. Schrade's 75th anniversary was in 1979 and was recognized with a 75th Anniversary clasp knife.

 

[Codger_64]

Here is another limited edition which just went off on eBay for a bit more than I thought it was worth.

It was made using a stainless 512OT blank (the cancelled 1991 European Old Timer order). It does use a Giorgianni artwork though I can't make out the date if it is dated. He retired in 1992 but his successor, John Duffy might have used some of the existing artwork file as they did reusing the 1979 deer bust artwork. The running deer is not one I have seen before on a production Scrimshaw and the density of the image suggests that Frank may not have been the one who reduced it for the stamping die.

 

[Codger_64]

Here is another. One of the color washed ones made between 1983 and 1987. Whitetail deer limited edition.



ETA: 1988 HK88 Hunting Knife assortment Bonus.

 

[Codger_64]

One special issue is the 152OTO knife with hunter orange Delrin handle and "LIMITED EDITION" shield. It was commissioned by Smokey Mountain Knife Works circa 1991 for inclusion in their "father and son" hunting sets with the 165OTO "DEERHUNTER", 15OTO "LIMITED EDITION", and 158OTO with an Old Timer shield. Quite a number of these appeared for sale after the Schrade closing, so they are unique, but not really rare.

These are currently pretty well dried up on the secondary market though they were pretty common in the few years following the factory liquidation.

 

[Codger_64]

Another one not quite like the other ones. And another mystery. Giorgianni artwork dated 1978. Black box circa 1979-1986. The lioness artwork doesn't appear on any of the lists I have seen or in the catalogs or in the flyers.

The 501SC (154OT) pattern was only used a few times over the years in the Scrimshaw series. The later 518SC (158OT) pattern that replaced it in production was used far more frequently. In fact, the only 501SC issue on the list Ms. Chase gave Levine is the 1979 Deer Bust.

 

[MadTrapper]

The 501SC or SC501 (I've seen then both ways) is most commonly seen with the Deer Head scrimshaw. I have the Cougar as shown above, and I have one with a Pronghorn Antelope Head. I've also seen this model with a Bear and a Dog facing each other. The Bear and Dog scrimshawed version was marked 154UH and had "Limited Edition" on the blade rather than the standard "Schrade Scrimshaw" language.

 

[Codger_64]

The 501SC or SC501 (I've seen then both ways) is most commonly seen with the Deer Head scrimshaw. I have the Cougar as shown above, and I have one with a Pronghorn Antelope Head. I've also seen this model with a Bear and a Dog facing each other. The Bear and Dog scrimshawed version was marked 154UH and had "Limited Edition" on the blade rather than the standard "Schrade Scrimshaw" language.

Pictures of them? My own "I remember seeing" has tripped me up more times than I can count! And I am attempting to document them. A lot of the "Special Edition" and "Limited Edition" were made to include as dealer bonuses with the purchase of the hunting knife counter displays and floor display panels.

The "lioness" above is serialized on the pile side, 00070. Many of the bonus knives are not. And will have the "SE" or "LE" etch rather than the standard Scrimshaw etch.

 

[MadTrapper]

Well since Photobucket is something I no longer use, I'm going to have to figure out this whole picture posting process all over again. Ugh! Why can't anything ever be simple?

I'll see what I can do regarding pics of the SC501's that I mentioned. It'll likely be a few days till I can get back to this though. In the meantime, if there's a simple way to post pics here, I'd sure appreciate hearing it.

Thank you.

 

[Codger_64]

Well since Photobucket is something I no longer use, I'm going to have to figure out this whole picture posting process all over again. Ugh! Why can't anything ever be simple?

I'll see what I can do regarding pics of the SC501's that I mentioned. It'll likely be a few days till I can get back to this though. In the meantime, if there's a simple way to post pics here, I'd sure appreciate hearing it.

Thank you.

Tinypic.com works fine and it is easy.

 

[Codger_64]

I found one of the limited editions you mentioned. The 1998 Wildlife Collector Set had the bear and hound art on the 501SC. This was the art used on the 1983 502SC and Kmart 205SC (reversed).

Aaaaand... I found the pronghorn. Though I still don't know the date/issue of it or the lioness above. Which by the tuft on the tail does seem like an African lion.

A SFO set was destined for Land Rover South Africa in 1996. Art was an elephant, leopard, and lion, and a Land Rover logo. This is a possibility on the lion. Though I don't have an image or list of patterns to confirm it.

 

[MadTrapper]

Those are the ones! I'd have to agree Codger, the tail tuft makes it a lioness and not a cougar.

 

[Codger_64]

Here is the 1998 Wildlife set containing the above 501SC Bear and Hound.



And while searching for that image I found the 1996 Wildlife Forever set containing the 502SC Deer Bust (not the same as the 1979 art on the 501SC and not signed or dated by the artist).

 

[Garza]

1984 Great American outdoors

 

[Codger_64]

Nice set! Every year more and more of these sets are broken up because the knives sell for more individually than collectively in the set.

 

[Codger_64]

Here is one I want to bring forward. Most of you are familiar with the Peterson Publishing subscription bonus knife for their Guns & Ammo magazine. There were two offers and two subsequent productions.

Year end records show none produced in 1975, but 1976 records show an order for 20,350 knives with 14,250 shipped by year's end and 1,676 left in stock. 1977 records show a final shipment of 6,000 knives and 42 left in stock. 1979 and 1980 both show no shipments and 249 left in stock. Those disappeared unaccounted for in 1981 with no shipments noted and none in stock.

But the year end records in 1982 show 9,548 shipped. 1983, the year of the above dated example, shows 32,931 pieces shipped and a final 2,500 shipped in 1984.

So it appears that the Sharpfinger 152GA was offered and produced twice. First production beginning in 1976 totaled 30,600 pieces. Second production beginning in 1982 totaled 44,979 pieces, for an overall total production of 75,579 knives.

Of the two production runs, the earlier 1976 run would be the least common, though neither are low production by any metric. This explains why so many show up on that auction site year after year, most of which are used to one degree or another. One could surmise that this is because the majority of original owners were multi-year subscribers of Guns & Ammo and therefore more likely to be active hunters and outdoorsmen than the average retail purchaser.

In summation, the sheer number produced and shipped, 75,579, dictates that this SFO is by no means rare. However it appears that new in the box examples are uncommon and therefore somewhat attractive as a collectable to fans of the pattern. With these two production examples in hand, I am done with actively searching for examples of this SFO. Unless... a NIB example with the more familiar SAS-19 handle retainer strap comes to my attention. Duck/junebug.

So two productions, 1976-77 and 1982-84. Both with the SCHRADE over U.S.A. tang stamp. But now I find a third variant, one which has the black covers, the Guns & Ammo shield but the standard production tang stamp.

It does have the earlier style sheath. So it was (a) an oops (b) made before they got the custom stamp (c) made sometime in the run when they temporarily ran out of custom stamped blanks or (d) made at the end of the run when they were producing the percent overage to take care of warranty and rejects.

 

[FatCity67]

These are the only two Sharpfingers I’ve collected amazingly over the years and are part of the 91, 93 scrim sets. Favorite set is the 91. Also have the clear plexi glass cover for the 93 set that you hardly ever see with these.

 

[Codger_64]

I've always liked these sets. But from the beginning the temptation was to get one of each and that would have been expensive. So I decided to get just one or two patterns representing each set. Still have a long way to go but most of the fun is in the hunt. In most years they made 1,500 sets and 1,500 pieces of each pattern sold in individual boxes. So I still hunt. And occasionally find one I want at what I consider a fair price. I think 1979 was the first boxed set and 1996 was the last. I may be misremembering. But even at $200 each, that is a fair chunk of change!

 

[FatCity67]

Came to those same conclusions after I picked up these two sets within a short period of time. Fortunately it was in 2010 when the market was awash in scrimsets. Wish I had picked up a few of the early sets back then.

 

[Codger_64]

Came to those same conclusions after I picked up these two sets within a short period of time. Fortunately it was in 2010 when the market was awash in scrimsets. Wish I had picked up a few of the early sets back then.

Amazing the cycles of popularity / availability and price fluctuations we have seen since 2004, isn't it? I still have to remind myself to use the inflation converter to get a better perspective of current prices when I shop. Without it we get a false impression that the knives we own and would like to own have greatly increased in value. Of course it behooves the sellers to give that impression. Can't fault them for that.

ETA: None of which keeps me from collecting pictures of the actual sets to augment the factory flyers and catalog pictures! I still chicken-eye every set I see! They do help me to document the single non-set fixed blade editions I find.