Old and Obscure Brands

[paulsvintage]

always nice to see another

[knifegirl888]

That's a neat one, Bill!

[robinetn]

I've already posted this one on the pearl thread , but it isn't listed here yet (Columbia).
Bob R.

[edgy46]

Knifegirl and Paul
Thanks.

Robinetn
Nice knife

[tongueriver]

Lamplough Cutlery. 4 1/8 inches closed. Half stops. Excellent fit and finish. Blade etch JOHNSON WIRES with the low spots filled in with (gold plating?). Pile side tang stamped MADE IN/SOLINGEN/51.

[Owd Wullie]

NICE!!!

[knifegirl888]

NICE!!!

I agree!

[orvet]

Here is one I could not figure out until I took the knife apart. I could only see the top line.
I could see what looked like O R C or G with a mark between each letter, or just some scuffing, really hard to tell.

It turns out it is GRC/CO./CHICAGO
A bit of digging in Goins and I found out it is Golden Rule Cutlery Co. of Chicago.
Goins dates it, c. 1911-1921

The handles are totally gone. I am sure they were celluloid.
Eventually I hope to put nice bone on this pen knife.

Dale

[trail]

Dale, I found a lot of information on Golden Rule Cutlery in "Manufacturing and Wholesale Industries of Chicago" by Josiah Seymour Currey, published in 1918. Google has digitized the book and made it available online. I expect there is information in it about other Chicago cutlers of the day. The company descriptions include a lot of Chamber of Commerce style puffery, which makes for amusing reading, but there is a plenty of good information as well. For example:

"In the manufacturing of high-grade cutlery this representative Chicago corporation has gained precedence that marks it as one of the most important concerns of its kind in America. In its special function of manufacturing photo pocket knives the company maintains the only factory devoted to this productive industry in the entire middle west, and the manufacturing plant is uniformly conceded to be the largest and best equipped of its kind in the United States."

"The business of the Golden Rule Cutlery Company was founded in the year 1902, when Charles S. Tate began on a small scale the manufacturing of pocketknives with transparent handles for the display of photographs or other designs. The original factory was at 817 West Division street..."

"At the time of this writing,-in 1917, the Golden Rule Cutlery Company employes in its factory a force of seventy skilled operatives, and the trade of the company has been extended not only into all sections of the United States, but also into European countries, with regular shipment of products into Mexico and the Canadian provinces, as well as to the Philippine Islands, Hawaii and Cuba."

"the average annual business is now in excess of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, the factory having a capacity for the output of one thousand dozens of its cutlery products each week."

[trail]

Continuing on the theme of Chicago companies from the golden age of American business and industry, here is one from the Autopoint Company. Autopoint was a manufacturer of mechanical pencils and other office supplies from around 1920 into the early 1970s, when they ended up in the Gillette conglomerate and were absorbed by its Papermate division. There is a current Autopoint Company in Janesville which bought the old name, but the Chicago factory and old designs are all gone. A big part of Autopoint's business was in advertising pencils, and this knife falls into that category, with lettering for The Bostwick Steel Lath Co. of Niles, OH. They also evidently did a lot of business supplying the government with mechanical pencils, back in the day when records were kept on paper rather than on computer. The old knife is of solid construction with hard snap both ways and half and full stops. I don't know if these were actually made in the Autopoint factory or purchased from an outside supplier, but it seems plausible that a company that made a good mechanical pencil could also make a decent pocket knife. I am much taken with the distinctive script tang stamp.

[trail]

A quick search of the AAPK site reveals no mention of King's Kwality, so I think this knife qualifies as obscure. This thread is turning me into a stamp collector, only explanation I can give for buying this used-up and broken knife. I will say it looks better from behind - kind of like some of my girlfriends these days...

[orvet]

Great info Paul, thank you!

I like those two other stamps too, both are unique.
Goins lists just the name of the Kings Kwality.

Just going from bone on the handles I would guesstimate 1930-1945.....
But that is just from the look of the bone.

There is nothing wrong with collecting stamps.
I do that too, they can be fascinating!

Thanks for the info,
Dale

[Tom_123]

Great thread, so much to look and to learn.
I hope my brands fits in somehow.



From above:

GML – Genossenschaft Messerschmiede Leegebruch
( cooperative knife forge Leegebruch)
Knife factory of the former German Democratic Republic

C.F.Kayser – Solingen Germany
Founded in 1879, made pocketknives until circa 1961.

Ernst Brückmann – Taschenmesserfabrik Solingen-Ohligs Germany
Founded in 1891, the company was closed after the dead of Paul Brückmann in 1956.

[trail]

Great knives, Tom. I'd guess the GML is the most obscure, Eastern Bloc knives just don't seem to show up very often. The craftsmanship looks good, so it seems the East German cutlers were able to maintain their morale and pride through the hard years of Russian overlordship. Do you know if the plant is still active?

[Tom_123]

Do you know if the plant is still active?

No, like many companies of the GDR they went out of business after the reunion.

I have just started to look a bit closer into this company,
so here is what I got so far:

GML was founded as a cooperative of cutlers from Nixdorf
(now Mikulasovice/Czech Republic) who immigrated to the GDR after WW II.
The cooperative was ‘nationalized’ to a VEB ( publicly owned company) in circa 1956.
Beside the GML brand, they also produced knives under the brand name ‘FORON’
and had also some cooperations with Puma and Henckels.
After the reunion, it gets somehow obscure.
AFAIK, they were sold to a Siegfried Schumacher GmbH of Gummersbach
who changed the brand name to ‘Adler Messer’ (eagle knives)
and evacuates the production back to Mikulasovice.
A history of GML can be found here:

http://www.leegebruch-geschichte.de/tex ... p?id=67408

and here’s a large thread about knives from the former GDR:

http://www.messerforum.net/showthread.php?t=12393

Both unfortunately in German, but at least a lot of pictures to look at.

[orvet]

Great info Tom.
Thanks.

[Miller Bro's]

Fayetteville Knife Co.

[FRJ]

Nice knives everyone..........trail, that autopoint is a nice looking knife.
And great looking bone on that kings kwality.

[orvet]

Sweet Barlow Dimitri!

[Mike S.]

Here's one that I received information on, thanks to the knowledgeable people on this site. It's a Arthur Wilzin patent automatic pocket knife. It was produced by the Automatic knife Company of Middletown Connecticut. They made them from 1891-93.

[Desktop]

Here's one that I received information on, thanks to the knowledgeable people on this site. It's a Arthur Wilzin patent automatic pocket knife. It was produced by the Automatic knife Company of Middletown Connecticut. They made them from 1891-93.

Nice!
That is a rare bird!

[paulsvintage]

great guys... love to see these knives

[dcgm4]

Here are a few rare ones.

1. An ivory whittler by Charles Bradshaw of Kenyon Alley (Sheffield).

2. A dogleg jack by Norfolk Knife Co. of Norfolk, VA.

3. A pearl whittler by Ideal Cutlery Co. of Newark, NJ.

[knifegirl888]

ohhh... those are pretty!

[trail]

Here's the up to date list:

Bower
United Cutlery
Sorge
Coca-Cola
W. Bingham
Kamp Cutlery
Valley Forge
Ostdiek
A.E. Fuller
S.& A.
Hollinger
F.GG & Sawyer
Case
Edward K.Tryon
M.Klaas
Samuel Robinson
E.M.Dickinson
Wm.Congreve
Tonerini Scarperia
Vom Cleff
Jack Knife Ben
K.& B. Cutlery
Nippel
R.Bunting & Sons
Silver Steel
W&G Vogel
A*1 Tyler Celebrated Cutlery
G&J Allen Superior Cutlery
Lockwood Brothers
Quaker Cutlery
Mcknight Cutlery
North American Cutlery
Fidelity Knife Co
HOLMAC
SCHMIDT & ZIGLER
Utica Kutmaster
Sterling L.G.H
Alpha
Roberts Brothers
A.J. Jordan
American Knife Co.
Peters Bros Cut Co.
Adams & Bro
Bergman & Scuddig
Dame Smith & Hall
Duane Cutlery
F.D. Bast
Harvey Bros
J. Dunlap
Prolific H.B & Son
Tyler's Celebrated Cutlery
Adams & Sons
Stevenson
Clark Bros
Gales & Co
Moore - Handley
Lenox Cutlery
Majestic Cutlery Co.
A.W. Flint
Abercrombie & Fitch
Ameike
Argyle Cutlery Co.
Ascend W.T. Stanforth
American Shear & Knife Co.
R. Bunting & Son
Challenge
Constant
Cook Bros.
Corliss
Crucible Knife Co.
Duane Cutlery
Electric Cutlery
E. Renaud
F. Herder & Son
Fletcher Hardware
Richards Bros. & Sons
Barber Bros.
Magnetic Cutlery Co.
Vollmer
M.C.Co. Meriden
Holub
Fairplay Brothers
Wade & Butcher
Joseph Gray & Son
Excelsior Knife Company
Corning Knife Company
Seneca Cutlery
A. Reinig
J. Pritzlaff
Hartford Cutlery
G. Gregory
Haynes Stellite
Columbia
Lamplough Cutlery
Golden Rule Cutlery
Autopoint
King's Kwality
GML
C.F. Kayser
Ernst Brückmann
Fayetteville Knife Co.
Automatic knife Company
Charles Bradshaw
Norfolk Knife Co
Ideal Cutlery Co