I seldom buy slip joint knives. They seem so old fashioned, as if the manufacturer can’t catch-up with the 1980s not to mention 2021. The blade is held open by spring pressure on the tang and doesn’t lock the blade open. I see it as a safety issue, but that’s me. I do make an exception for very cool knives, like Doctor knives or Physician’s knives.
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| Case Doctor Knife, no64128 You could say it is on target. |
But I’ve got a list of must-haves. It’s got to have a spatula and a slender spear point. The knife butt should be flat and I suspect the originals has a solid, flat end. Back in the old days when doctors made house calls they often took medical supplies with them. Sometimes they needed to formulate medication and would grind up a power or pill and makes a salve or roll pills.
You
don’t find too many as this was a niche market, but I’ve seem examples from ink
and paint companies as part of their advertising and self-promotion.
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| Yeah, those are scratches on my new knife. |
I’m also not a big Case knife fan. They are, in my opinion, a collector’s club attempting to drive sales by constantly changing handle materials and their unique system of dating blades. If you collect a specific pattern, you’ll never be done as each year a newly dated knife is made by the thousands.
One
of their ploys, which I like from a marketing point of view, is they will
“retire into the vault” a pattern that doesn’t have much demand and later
release it when they think there is demand for it.
This
happens to Doctor knives. I saw this
knife in 2018 for the first time, but even as I jumped on it, it slipped
away. A. G. Russell had “found’ a cache
and I didn’t wait.
The
handle is natural bone scales that have been sculpted and dyed with the stars
and stripes of the American flag waving in the wind and capped with
nickel-silver bolsters. The fact that
Case jigs and dyes their own bone in house allows them to create these unique
pieces.
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| The back is a nice white bone |
The front is a nice jigged bone
handle in a American Flag motif while the back is just white bone.
The one thing I don’t like, half
the width of the spatula seems to be scratched by the brass bolster that separates
the two blades. I doubt very much the
brass actually did scratch the blade. I
think it is a manufacturing artifact. I
could polish it out, if it’s not too deep, but I’m going to leave it as that’s
the way they made it.
I understand A.G. is out of stock
and the Case vault is still locked. I’m happy
to have it in my collection.
1 comment:
During the eighties actor Paul Hogan played an Australian character known as Mick “Crocodile” Dundee who is bushman that falls in love with a woman from New York. In the film, Crocodile Dundee utters a famous movie line that states: “That’s not a knife. This is a knife.” Dundee was referring to the large sized knife that he usually carries around with him. He was being confronted by a group of knife wielding hoodlums when he spoke this line. The knife that it is used in both Crocodile Dundee films is considered a hunting or Bowie knife.
The Dundee knife was created by an Australian gunsmith named John Bowring. He was approached by the studio that produced Crocodile Dundee film and asked to make an original knife for the Dundee character. Bowring agreed and produced the famous Dundee knife.
The Crocodile Dundee knife has some minor changes to it which gives it a different look from a Bowie knife. The Dundee knife has a half of a brass guard which is facing downward instead of pointing up. The blade of the Dundee knife has a deep groove in it and the handle isn’t wooden. The materials for the handle are made out of twine or leather strands.
People who earn their living in the wild think that the Crocodile Dundee knife is the ultimate survival knife. Many experts agree that the Crocodile Dundee knife would be suitable for outdoor use. The blades on the knives are made out of stainless steel and are very durable in the water. The knives are heavy enough to cut branches and practical for hunting.
When Bowring created the Dundee knives he only made two original models and many replicas. In the movie the original knives were used for close up shots and the replicas were used for combat sequences. After the films were completed Paul Hogan and another person received the original knives with the promise to never put them up for sale. Hogan has supposedly honored his commitment and still retains the original Crocodile Dundee knife.
The Dundee knife was also used in the second film featuring Crocodile Dundee and it too created a huge demand from audiences and fans. The Crocodile Dundee knife isn’t manufactured by any company though Bowring makes the knives available for customers. A lot of knife enthusiasts were amazed by Dundee’s knife and wanted one for their own collections.
Many Dundee knife owners try to hold onto their knives because of their craftsmanship. They also try their best not to use their Dundee knife since would cause the item to depreciate. It has been almost 30 years since Crocodile Dundee was popular Bowring probably no longer makes this type of knife available for the public since it has been nearly 30 years since Crocodile Dundee was a popular movie.
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