Stag handles fun

[dks]

I was bored so I took some photographs of some knives with stag handles and tried to group them...

[dks]

Normal stag...

and Burnt stag..

[dks]

Nice, textured stag..

[dks]

Bone "stag"
Faaaat
Thin
Main blades

[Poncho65]

Beautiful collection you have there dks

Bet you  will get more attention now than before

[SteveC]

Very nice collection   

[Dean51]

 
Wow that's an impressive collection.
I can post 1 tonight & try to get the other one tomorrow.

[Ray S]

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[Poncho65]

Some very nice stag Ray

 

[SAK Guy]

Very nice collection   

+100!!!

[SAK Guy]

I only have a few stag.....

[SAK Guy]

Nice collection Ray!!!

[Gerhard Gerber]

......and Ray knocks it out of the park again  with the marriage wrecker in a close second

I only have one stag handled knife........fortunately it's a Puma White Hunter 

General comment on recent slippy/traditional/Case threads..............YOU GUYS ARE KILLING ME! 

 

 

[dks]

replies!!  real replies!!  after only 4 years       

 

I knew that if I stuck here long enough someone will reply...       


Nice, mature stag Ray - Nice fresh stag Sakguy

I have acquired a few more since then, but not that many (I think...)
At the time I was going through a stag phase, buying lots of stag handled knives... for some reason...

[Dean51]

I only have two stag knives. Stag is the one handle material I won't buy unless I can either handle it or see pictures left, right and from above.
It's a half days drive to the nearest large brick & mortar, so my opportunity to handle a knife before I buy is limited.
Glad you tried for replies again I'm enjoying.

[dks]

From the ones I bought online, from the US, even though they were German made,  2 had to be send back because I was not happy. One was nothing like the picture, the other was not the one that I discussed about getting with the dealer.

I generally like the pop corn style dark brown (like in many of Rays pictures) stag -some like smooth stag. If I am at a proper shop I will handle several knives before I decide to buy one. Online I will ask for pictures (stag knives are not usually cheap)
RR, Chinese Buck are an easy/cheap way to get a decent Stag knife.

If you do not intend to use them, the the new Schrades may also suffice.

Unlike most materials, stag has to "talk" to you. A perfect knife for someone may not look right to someone else.
Some can be too thick or too thin, you may have mismatched sides or the wrong thickness on one side. The stag comes in various styles, from various breeds and from various parts of the antlers - top, bottom, inside outside.
Cracks can occur and in the wrong environment stag has been known to shrink.

You also have bone made to look like stag, or even synthetic "stag" (popular with Queen, Schrade..)

I should point out that in some knives one side is intentionally made thicker than the other, to make it more anatomically fitting to your hand. It is assumed that you will be holding it with the blade up.

[Dean51]

Unlike most materials, stag has to "talk" to you. A perfect knife for someone may not look right to someone else.
Some can be too thick or too thin, you may have mismatched sides or the wrong thickness on one side. The stag comes in various styles, from various breeds and from various parts of the antlers - top, bottom, inside outside.

Agree 100%
These were talking to me, the sides are well matched and they were smooth enough for me to like as users.

[dks]

NICE

[dks]

Here are a few more that were close by.

A real stag handled knife and 3 imitation ones

[Poncho65]

replies!!  real replies!!  after only 4 years       

 

I knew that if I stuck here long enough someone will reply...       


Nice, mature stag Ray - Nice fresh stag Sakguy

I have acquired a few more since then, but not that many (I think...)
At the time I was going through a stag phase, buying lots of stag handled knives... for some reason...

See it wasn't your fault that nobody posted just interest at the time wasn't peaked towards trads in general as it is right now Glad you posted the link in the other thread for me to find this thread

This thread was just waiting dormant for the right time to be revived

[Ray S]

Unlike most materials, stag has to "talk" to you. A perfect knife for someone may not look right to someone else.
Some can be too thick or too thin, you may have mismatched sides or the wrong thickness on one side. The stag comes in various styles, from various breeds and from various parts of the antlers - top, bottom, inside outside.
Cracks can occur and in the wrong environment stag has been known to shrink.

I agree with you on all counts. Of all the handle materials available stag to me wins hands down. I have two Puma White Hunters;one of which has beautiful popcorn stag scales on both sides and the grip is fantastic even when it is wet.The other one is nice but doesn't have the "feel" of the popcorn stag.
A lot of the early English knives usually had beautifully matched stag scales that were extremely thin;the result of very careful fitting. Around 1900 a lot of the knives started to have an extremely fancy scale on the mark side and a plainer one on the pile side but were still thin and nicely fit. Even the large bowie hunters had relatively thin and matching scales.
I'm not sure exactly when the stag scales started to be very thick and ground on the ends to fit but that was when they lost their appeal to me.
On another note: I had a set of English steak knives that originally came with faux pearl synthetic handles that had deteriorated to the point they were crumbling, At a yard sale I found a bunch of antlers for sale for 50 cents apiece(!) and bought them all. Several of them I used the crowns for handles on the knives;even leaving a spur on one to use as a thumb rest(my personal knife).The remaining pieces I used for handling small knives and letter openers.
Here are a few more pics.

[dks]

    good to hear some history

[Ray S]

Here are a couple of closeups of the Puma White Hunters to show the difference in the scales.The popcorn stag is on a pre-1964 Puma.A funny story on how I acquired that one:
I had answered an ad in a local paper about a Colt Trooper(Model 28) for sale along with a Puma knife. Went to see it and found it was a pre-64 still in the original wooden box with all the papers and sheath. Paid $250 for it and the Trooper and the guy even threw in a single shot .22 rifle!
Gave the rifle to a friend of mine for his son who was getting his first gun;sold the Trooper to another friend for $250 and wound up with a Puma White hunter for FREE!
The second pics are a repeat of page 7 but are interesting(to me anyway)in that the knife is less than 3 inches(7.5cm) long and has one piece bolsters and liners with "birds-eye" rivets holding it together.It also has a "match striker" nail mark(unusual on such a small knife)and a small piece of bone that acts as a buffer to protect the point of the knife when the blade is closed.The maker is Charles Congreve who was only in business from 1829 to 1843.How this little knife(that was most likely a quill knife judging from the coping blade)survived for nearly two hundred years is something to ponder. If it could only talk!