I missed a bit of drama, did I? No worries mates. Round of James Squire on me.
No, the sets were assembled as special factory orders for a customer, Chromate. Who stuck the hat pins in there? Eric said they didn't belong in the sets. Maybe a seller put them in there post factory auction.
I've seen those hat pins in non-Old Timer sets more than once and from multiple sellers, as Koldgold points out. Leads me to
suspect these sets went through one of the closeout distributors before making their way to individual sellers.
And there were no known Classics Sharpfingers, were there?
Not to my knowledge. Never even seen a picture of one. But of course lots of Schrade variations and prototypes turn up from time to time, huh?
Here's another tidbit of information, hope it doesn't stir the pot too much. The four-piece framed Old Timer Classics sets did
not include the hat pins either; only the individual knives sold in tins came with hat pins. I have the framed set with the serial number 012, and there's no hat pin. Even thinking the hat pin could have become lost, I closely inspected the molded frame insert and there's no pinhole.
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Similarly remember last year, or maybe the year before, when the adhesive Old Timer patches hit the giant auction place? (I bought a roll of a thousand, as well as a couple smaller strips that I gave away here) Within weeks those stickers were stuck all over the place on eBay. On prolific seller in particular stuck an adhesive patch on every item he sold.
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This is all an issue that I'd struggled with as an Old Timer collector, especially with the Sharpfingers who's blades weren't marked OT even when used on Old Timers. Is it an Old Timer if it has an OT blade but plasti-stag handles? If it has Old Timer handles but an SC or UH blade? The answer isn't always clear, and I probably have a few items in my collection that others wouldn't consider true
Old Timers.
But one thing's for sure, "
A hat pin does not an Old Timer make."
