Stockman Sunday picture show

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I was hoping to have these two beauty’s cleaned and ready for today’s show but alas it just didn’t happen so here they are still soaking in mineral oil...two Schrades with my working Camillus 301.
( photo from yesterday)View attachment 1376873
Great photos of some amazing knives today guys. All these different stockman make me wish I could open my collection up to the pattern but I know me and I would lose my mind!
 
CHNeal said:
Ok I felt bad using a recycled picture and of knives in bags to boot. Here’s a pair of big and little brothers

71’ Camillus 301 and 303 and a 67’-71’ Schrade 301 with his little brother the 303. View attachment 1376881
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I grew up in that era (late 60s/early70s). I have a few Camillus and Schrade pocket knives and really like them. But somehow, back then as a kid, I would feel slightly disappointed to find out my Buck pocket knife was made by someone else...I'm guessing it was a fairly common practice, but why did Buck do that for the 301 & 303?
 
mph57 said:
I grew up in that era (late 60s/early70s). I have a few Camillus and Schrade pocket knives and really like them. But somehow, back then as a kid, I would feel slightly disappointed to find out my Buck pocket knife was made by someone else...I'm guessing it was a fairly common practice, but why did Buck do that for the 301 & 303?
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They didn't have the space and/or tooling to make the 300 series (and it was more than just the 301/303, by the way) in-house prior to their move to Idaho?
I'm guessing the 300 series that didn't sell a lot (such as the Marin Spike) were dropped after the move, because it wasn't economically feasible to tool up for them.

You are correct, it was (and still is) common practice for one manufacturer to contract another to make the knives for them, that for whatever reason(s) they do not have capability/capacity of making in-house.
"Back in the day" contracting to build knives for other companies was a big part of their business for Schrade, Imperial, Camillus, Colonial, and I believe Utica, just to name a few. :)
 
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afishhunter said:
They didn't have the space and/or tooling to make the 300 series (and it was more than just the 301/303, by the way) in-house prior to their move to Idaho?...
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I don't know why the early 300 series knives were made by Schrade then Camillus. It may have been an economical way to get into the traditional pocket knife market and gauge interest.

For what it's worth, a lot of 300s were made in the El Cajon factory before their move to Idaho.

My earliest interest was in the 300 series knives because there was a huge variety of them; brass liners, scale pins or not, integral bolsters, various blade grinds, different scale colors and textures, etc. I didn't find out for a while that a lot of the variation was because the early ones were contract-made. It didn't matter to me. Even now, thirty-plus years later I'll still stumble across something I haven't seen before every once in a while.
 
JohnDF said:
That was my era too...
Back then, you were either a Schrade guy or a Buck guy.
The Buck guys were always the "Bad Boys", I was a Schrade guy. :D
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What about the Case Guys, and them who used say Western and Colonial? Was they called something that didn't involve the language the Sunday School teacher warned you about using?

(yet they used such language freely and frequently themselves, when not teaching Sunday School ... the hippy crits ...)
 
dsutton24 said:
For what it's worth, a lot of 300s were made in the El Cajon factory before their move to Idaho.
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I was not aware of that. Everything I've seen over in the Buck sub-forum says the entire 300 series were contract knives prior to the move to Idaho in 2005. (at least before Schrade shut down in mid/late 2004.)
First by Schrade, then Camillus because too many of the Schrade built with Swendon Key construction were being sent in for repair of failed Swendon Keys.
 
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afishhunter said:
I was not aware of that. Everything I've seen over in the Buck sub-forum says the entire 300 series were contract knives prior to the move to Idaho in 2005. (at least before Schrade shut down in mid/late 2004.)
First by Schrade, then Camillus because too many of the Schrade built with Swendon Key construction were being sent in for repair of failed Swendon Keys.
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Buck started making the 301,303,309 and 305 in house in 1985 or 1986. I had read that they switched to Camillus because they were much easier to repair. Not sure if getting to many Schrade built knives back for repair was really the issue or because they were so difficult to repair.
 
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For those who like a Small Stockman, the Queen Cutlery No.26 in WCSB should be considered. Several other scale options : ACSB, BEM, Zebra, Cherry, Horn ( I'd keep away from that one though) Great W&T and D2 offers a variation too.

Shown here with GEC 38 Farmer's Jack
 
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