Doctor, Doctor

 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.

Case Doctor Knife, no64128  You could say it is on target.

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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.

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.

The back is a nice white bone

My knife is part of the Star Spangled series Case introduced at the 2017 SHOT Show.  The blade is a slender spear point 3 inches long with a Rockwell C hardness of 54-57.  The blade is made of Case’s proprietary steel called Tru-Sharp.  Case describes as a high carbon steel.  I suggest a drop of oil is called for.

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.

Mack's Knife

Sherman, set the Wayback Machine to the mid-60s.

Buck Knife has knocked America and the world on its collective ass with the Buck 110 Hunter.  It’s not the first lock-back knife, but the combination of a solid lock, 420HC stainless with great heat treatment and a belt carry pouch occurs at the right point in time.  Everyone carries one.  My favorite literature hero, Matt Helm carries one; I sold a very nice German locking knife to my brother so I could buy one.

Cops, firemen, soldiers, outdoors men, scout masters all wanted to carry a Buck 110 Hunter.

Case's Shark Tooth

This doesn’t pass unnoticed by Case Knife.  Coming out of WWII Case remains a conservative company making knives the old fashioned way by hand with carbon steel blades.  Case wants in on this market share.  They just don’t want to compete; they want to send Buck home hungry.  By 1972 they have their world beater.  They call it the Shark Tooth.

The Shark Tooth is a spine locking blade with a palm swell to fit your hand better than the slab-sided Buck.  The 3-inch blade is backed with a finger divot so you can choke-up for fine work and still get the long blade reach.  The blade is stainless steel that holds an edge, but its identity isn’t revealed.  I don’t know why.  Both bolsters are brass, but the back one is cut on an angle to give it a streamline appearance.  This knife also comes with a leather pouch cause weighs almost a half-pound!  Too heavy or bulky to flop in a pocket.

The wood insert with the palm swell will be made from curly maple, but problems stops production.  The 1974 catalog (printed in 1973, I assume) has a picture of the Shark Tooth, but it’s stamped “Unavailable.”

The back edge beveled for a more streamline appearance

Finally Case decides on replacing the maple with Pakkwood and on December of 1975 finally ships the knives to distributors just in time for Christmas.  That made Santa very happy.

The Shark Tooth stays in production until March 2009. 

It’s a milestone knife for Case.  It marks the first use of a blade made from a modern stainless steel with good tempered used in a Case lock back.  Several other types of Case knives are released with that steel, but those are stories for another time.

Despite the trouble Case had with the curly maple handle insert, it manages to make 1800 of these.  These are hidden in a vault guarded by the Case gnomes.  What a treasure that would be to Case collectors.  It would be a unique collector’s knife, wouldn’t it?  If only we could get past the gnomes.

Too late.  In 1977 Case released all 1800 curly maple handled Shark Tooth (Teeth?) to their distributors.   Fox Mulder is right!  They are out there!