Charlie's passion

[knowtracks]

With an obvious interest in old knives & patterns our fellow forumite, upnorth, waynorth or Charlie of the Great White North, has pretty much singlehandedly brought the Harness Jack back from yesterday.
Back in the day before the automobile when this and every other country was run on horse power. The leather punch had to be an indispensable item in every working mans pocket or tool kit. Whether you were on a saddle horse, buggy or driving a team what better combination than a punch and a blade! You could repair most any harness with a HJ and a saddle string and get home.
With all the time, research and money that Charlie has invested in this pattern I think passion is an accurate description. And because he went to Queen with this idea we are talking about it here!
Upnorth had 3 different runs made of the Harness Jack by Queen & 1 made by GEC (but I'll let them discuss that on that forum)
The 1st HJ Charlie had made was on a Teardrop shaped frame. A large Spear point blade & a Cooper punch with half stops. James E. Copper patented this punch in April,1905 & was used by the Robeson Cut Co.
The Teardrop HJ, #042206 was the largest of the 3 HJs Queen made. It is 3 3/4" closed & 6 3/4" AOL with 420 HC steel in both blade & punch. It came with bone handles of 4 different colors, Amber, Golden, Crimson & Mahogany. 100 of each was produced along with 7 "specials" one each of AAA Pearl, Abalone, Tan Bark Mammoth Ivory, Tiger Coral, Ebony, Sambar Stag & Buffalo Horn. This knife was really a big hit here locally, after all it was years since a leather punch & a single blade knife had been seen. I bet I gave away at least 8 of these to local ranchers.
Here is a shot of all the "specials"

And the 2 that I was lucky to end up with.
Abalone

Tiger Coral

And the 4 bones ....
Amber

Crimson

Golden

Mahogany

Dave

[Another Knife Collector]

Great knives! Nice to see an old pattern revived. I don't often care for the jigging on modern knives with bone handles, but they sure got it right on that crimson! Thanks for sharing.

[knowtracks]

The 2nd Harness Jack that Charlie had made was a regular Jack, but I think it qualifies as a Sleeveboard. This knife, #69 is 3 1/2" closed & 6 1/8" OAL, had the smallest production run of the three. With 75 Goldenroot Jigged bone, 25 Ebony, 9 Candy Stripe (I don't have 1 to show you) and 2 Sambar Stag proto types. This knife sports 1095 steel in both Spear point blade & Mayer punch with half stops. The punch was patented by Moritz Mayer in Aug. 1908 and was used by Camillus Cut Co. This punch comes to a very sharp, fine point. And is perhaps is not as serviceable for everyday use as the other 2 punches. (I don't know if you can trust a regular cow hand with something this pointy) I personally have only given out 2 of these knives, both to local saddlemakers. This is my favorite Harness Jack.
The Stag & Candy

The Ebony

The Goldenroot

Dave

[knowtracks]

The 3rd SFO Harness Jack that Waynorth had made was on an equal end frame. This is the most pocket friendly and probably has the best all around punch. The local "boys" really went for this knife. Queen pattern #99, is 3 5/8" closed & 6 1/8" OAL, has 1095 steel & a Alvord punch. Seymour L. Alvord was from the family that owned Empire Knife Co. He patented this punch in Oct. 1906. I found it interesting that Charlie said he had this punch cold forged to achieve what Empire ground to shape. I know I read somewhere that the punches had a lower Rockwell rating for flexibility. Maybe Charlie will chime in on this. Another question I have is all 3 of these punches were patented around 1900, there had to be leather punches before then right??
This pattern was produced with 5 scale materials, 2 proto types(Stag & Red bone) and 2 specials which look like Water fall & Tortoise celluloid to me.
Here are the "specials"

The Pearl, 1 of 6

Ebony, 1 of 35

Red Bone, 1 of 40

Candy Stripe, 1 of 16

Green Bone, 1 of 73

Stag, 1 of 36

And 1 that got Oupa'fied

Dave

[boggs]

Simply wonderful...I was fortunate to purchase the third series minus the Pearl and Ebony..and only the Ebony in the second series..it's great to see the complete sets plus the special one's

Thanks again

[upnorth]

Thanks for posting these, Dave!
I started to collect the old ones, because I figured they were rare, so that would save me money by being infrequently found. Funny thing about the knife collecting market, when people, not just dealers, saw my want-ads in KnifeWorld Magazine asking for them, the prices doubled and tripled. And every time I bid on Ebay, more and more bidders appeared. I'd touched an area that had been largely ignored!
I decided the world needed more HJs! I first tried to get Case interested in producing them in their own product line, but repeated discussions failed to interest them, so I went to Queen, and found I could place a reasonably small order. I'm glad I had them done, but don't get any ideas that it is a money-making proposition!
I'm glad you live in a place where these knives can become EDCs, Dave! It's nice to know that others find them useful as well as collectible.
And throughout this journey, it was gratifying to learn that the old punches can help date many antique knives, and sometimes point to the contracting cutleries. Old and new, I love them all!
These Queen-made Schatts, were carefully specified, as to hardness of steel, and blade snap. I wanted the punches to STAY open, without resorting to an expensive added lock, so hopefully you will find the punches, especially on the later two, very firm.
I'll have to look up the rockwell hardness numbers - I have them somewhere - but the punches are indeed tempered to be tough against twisting, treated more like springs.
I hope the ones that are used, perform well!

[knowtracks]

From the reports that I have been given and my own personal experience, I would say these knives have preformed very well indeed.

[gino]

see this is what I love about this place- where else can a person (me) who loves pocket knives see such beautiful knives as on here and if I need a question answered everyone is more than happy to help. thanks for postin them, I am learning more each day and really love lookin at them.

Gino

[glenn]

Nice

[knowtracks]

I see 1 of the EE knives is up for bid in the Johnnie Fain auction.
They make a great every day knife!

[Jody744]

is the Alvord punch the one used in the S&M scout??? thanks

[singin46]

I was lucky enough to get several of these myself from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd series, I will never sell them due to the history and fact that I know Charlie and he's a true historian when it comes to knives. Thanks again Charlie for all the hard work you put in on these beauties! Dave did a fantastic job of describing each knife's history so on to the pics of mine.
The 1st series is the most desirable for me since I only have one, 1 of 1 Buffalo Horn given to me as a gift from UpNorth himself! Man, If I could just find some of the others from this 1st run!!!

The 2nd series I think, wound up being the most popular at the time because some had not been aware of the 1st series release. I had purchased 2 of these Harness Jacks. The 1st is an Ebony 1 of 25, the next is a Golden Root 1 of 75.

Finally, the 3rd series came out and I picked up 3 of these. A 1 of 2 Tortoise Shell in Celluloid, a 1 of 16 Candytstripe also Celluloid. And I bought a Waterfall 1 of 2 that outgassed so I turned it into an EDC with Kaleb's help and put some Stag Handles on it.

These knives are most prized by me and many others here due to the research it took to pull these Series' together.

Perry

[singin46]

Here's the one I was able to save thanks to Kaleb and Charlie's recommendation.
It's a great EDC because it was made right, by Queen. And it's still a genuine HJ.
Guess it's a 1 of 1 now.

[knowtracks]

Man that's a BEAUTY there Perry!
Thanks for sharing a pic of her.

Dave

[knowtracks]

is the Alvord punch the one used in the S&M scout??? thanks

I would say yes Jody. There have been 2 SFO's sets of 4 each that do have the exact same Alvord punch as the 3rd set of Charlies Harness jacks.
Queen has also released 2 other scouts, in the 3rd & 4th Annual Reproduction Series. They both appear to me to be the Alvord but with a radiused point. (It is not sharp to the touch) As compaired to the HJ's Alvord which has a sharp angled point.
Hope that makes sense.

Dave

[singin46]

Thanks Dave and I really liked revisiting these all over again. There were a lot of things in your OP that I had forgotten and had to pull my knives and check the punch blades again. Nothin like a good reason for playin with your knives!

[Jody744]

Thanks! now i gotta find some of that ebony

[singin46]

Jody, Hey Hiram!!!!

[testcase]

I have a third series Charlie sent me during a particulary difficult period when I was laid off for eight months. It is in my pocket every day I am on a horse, which isn't as often as I like anymore, but it seems an essential piece of my traps now.
It's last big trip was to Mississippi where I had the honor of leading a Battalion of Confederate cavalry at a reenactment.

I love showing it around the campfire while we had a few rounds of Woodford Reserve, it was appreciated in quality, form and function by all that handled it.

The best part was it finally shut the "I got a multi tool swiss army knife with a thousand functions" guy up

I also obtained a First Series this summer and I will ferret out a second series one day as well.

Great knives, great history... Thanks again Charlie

[singin46]

Sounds like a good time Test! There are and were a few men here who inspired me to collect what I collect still. Charlie was one of these men, he really has the pictures to back up what he was talking every time. There was no better man to bring these beauties back IMO.

[upnorth]

I'm happy to be a little part of your history guys!
The best part is, HJs are back in the knife collector's consciousness!

I wish I had made more of the number one and number two runs. Maybe some day I'll run a few more .

[singin46]

Yes Charlie, always a good thing!

[gmusic]

You guys have some real beauties there. Jacks..........................I'll make one someday, and enjoy the venture.

[upnorth]

Here are three HJs I archived from my first 3 runs, in order of appearance on the scene!
And below are the 2 4th run knives, based on the GEC big Cigar pattern.
I realize this is the Queen forum, but the story sort of continues . . .hope that's O.K?
GEC subsequently produced their own on the same pattern. If I recall correctly, they didn't make any Ebony of their own, and their Stag has a shield. The Stag is so good on my run, we left off the shield.
Mixed feelings about that, but there is no denying - every stag one is very good.
12 of each made. they were etched "1 of 25", but the second batch of 13 each were never made. There were also 2 prototypes of each.
You can see I went back to the Robeson style punch.
Some day I'd like to get someone to make a NYK style punch - that would be a feat of engineering!

[singin46]

Well you can certainly tell that these GECs have that older or vintage look about them Charlie! With the swedges and that punch blade, they really do stand out from their other knives.