DALTON OF THE WEEK - STC

Our fifteenth Dalton of the Week is the Safe-to-Carry (STC). We first saw the STC on 22 July 2002 with the post that included its picture with "zombie Rob". The STCs were first shipped to dealers around the end of July. The STC is an OTF with a spring loaded safety, an Asp type retracting bar, and a linerlock. Besides the safety, which allows this model to be safely carried in your pocket, several other unique features are a new clip point blade shape that we've never seen on a Dalton, a pointed skullcrusher retracting bar, and a Maltese cross (otherwise known as the sailor's cross or Spanish cross) with flames engraved on the handle. Another unique feature of the STC is that it is the first Dalton that I know of to come with an instruction card. Here's the front picture of the first STC variant:



Here's a top view showing the firing lever and safety:

Here's a bottom view showing the linerlock

Here's the clip side:

Dimensions are:

OAL: 8 - 3/4 including the skullcrusher charging bar
Blade Length: 3 - 7/16"
Handle Length: 5 - 5/16" with the skullcrusher, 4 - 15/16 not including the skullcrusher

To fire the blade: Push forward on the safety with the front part of your thumb, then rock your thumb back to depress the lever release.

Its a little more complicated to close: Push the linerlock over to the side, pull the charging bar half way back, push the safety forward, then pull the charging bar all the way back. It sounds complicated, but its actually not too bad.

The black handled STCs with beadblast clip point blades with or without the PROTO marking represent the first two variations of the model. The third variant has blue handles with red veining and 2-tone blades. The blue STCs also have an internal cap over the spring to make the action smoother. These were released in early September 2002. Here's a pic of the third variant:


The next variants of the of the STC, released in late September, have red handles with yellow splash and orange veining. There were twelve pieces with the Maltese cross and clip point blades (variant 4), twelve pieces with the devil logo and clip point blades (variant 5), and 96 pieces with the devil logo and weehawk/drop point blades (variant 6). All three variants had 2-tone blades. Here are two of these:




The seventh variant, which we first saw on 02 October, was a special run of 24 pieces with stainless steel handles. These had the Dalton logo and "tiger stripes" engraved on both sides of the handle, and a xx/24 serial number engraved into the handle. The blades were all 2-tone.



Variations 8 and 9, released in early November, have black and olive drab handles with the Dalton logo and tiger stripes engraved in the handle. Here are the pics:




As is often the case, Mr. Dalton "fancied up" some pieces of the last run. A few of them had some combination of serrated or plain, 2-tone or full satin blades with the black and OD handles as shown above. The serrations on these are different from any previous Dalton, as Mr. Dalton received a new serrating wheel during this run. The last of the STC's were probably made around mid November 2002. In this group, one piece was done with a full satin blade, serrations, and a Proto marking.

Here's a summary of the STC variants with known production numbers:

#1 Black handles/beadblast clip point blades/Maltese cross/PROTO: TBD (note 1)
#2 Black handles/beadblast clip point blades/Maltese cross/non-PROTO: 207 - PROTO (note 1)
#3 Blue handles/2-tone clip point blades/Maltese cross: TBD
#4 Red/yellow handles/beadblast clip point blades/Maltese cross: 12
#5 Red/yellow handles/beadblast clip point blades/Devil: 12
#6 Red/yellow handles/beadblast drop point blades/Devil: 96
#7 Stainless handles/drop point blade/Dalton logo: 24
#8 Black handles/2-tone drop point blade/Dalton logo: TBD (note 2)
#9 OD handles/2-tone drop point blade/Dalton logo: TBD (note 2)

Note 1: There were a total of 207 of the first black handled STCs (variants 1 and 2). The PROTOs were a small subset of this group.

Note 2: There were small numbers of "subvariants" of the last Black and OD pieces with 2-tone or full satin, plain or serrated blades.