Help to ID a Sheffield pocket knife

[Rifleman]

I just received this from a seller on eBay.It's in very good shape with bone scales and an ornate copper bail.The only marking on the blade is SHEFFIELD.Anybody know which company in Sheffield made this and maybe when?Also,is the short blade a can opener?

[knife7knut]

Beautiful old sailor's knife!Wish I could help with the ID.That particular style of can opener was out of fashion before WWII so if I had to guess I would put it somewhere around 1920 or possibly before.
I have an I*XL sailor's knife with the same style opener and fluted bolsters that has checkered horn scales and a marlinspike on the back.

[Rifleman]

Thanks,knife7knut,I appreciate the info.When I saw it on eBay with the $30 buy it now price,I jumped on it.

Dale

[Iron Hoarder]

These knives are commonly known as "Gift Tin" knives and are suspected to have been in some gift tins delivered to soldiers in the trenches during WWI. They were made by most cutlery companies in Sheffield and were also available as a private purchase item. Is there and arrow stamp anywhere on the knife? Nice find.

[Rifleman]

No broad arrow marks.No makers mark,only Sheffield.I did some research online and found some information about these on various sites.The designation for them is Pattern 8173/1914.The "Gift" designation seems to be in dispute on several sites.Either way it's a great WWI British pocket knife.

[Miller Bro's]

It pre-dates WWI

[Optimist]

Here are a few military style knives that span the period of your knife (a very handsome example I must say).

Information gathered from a variety of sources involving military history and horse enthusiasts suggests that significant changes took place around 1900.

Prior to the Boer Wars, soldiers who had anything to do with horses carried a metal tool to remove stones from hooves. Then the War Dept spotted that the knives that carried spikes for rope work (as used by the Navy eg)could be adapted for work with horses but an instruction was issued to blunt the too sharp point of such marlin spikes to avoid damaging the hoof. After a few years, the separate tool was withdrawn from issue.

At the time of the second Boer War, food supplies for the British forces were notoriously bad and some senior officers arranged to buy tinned food at their own expense to suppliment the men's diet. I read somewhere that canning dated back to the Napolionic period but it was a novelty to British forces at that time and the addition of a tin opener to the military style knife became a good idea (the alternative being to hack tins open with a bayonet).

If the War Dept bought and issued knives, they would usually have the arrow but if officers or individual soldiers bought the knife, that might not have applied. The second knife down in the picture is Pre-Boer War, has just one blade and bears the arrow. The others do not. The third knife is like your's but was made by FRA James Barber and the top one is by H G Long of Sheffield.

The last knife on the list is a Navy pattern item that I had to pay for while on naval training on a light fleet carrier in 1954. I had to buy it from the stores - without the famous arrow.

Please treat this information with caution, it is all derived from my own casual research and I do not own original documents to back it up.

[smiling-knife]

Nice collection Optimist.

The top knife is the Admiralty pattern 301 which was the Royal Navy knife from 1910 to 1930s. The Navy knives did not have the broad arrow mark. I like the second one down...very nice. s-k

[Optimist]

S-K, thank you for that information. I did not know that navy knives all lacked the arrow mark (like the one I had to buy in fact) and I was interested that you could identify the period and pattern 301. May I ask what the source of this information is as I would like to read more on the subject.

There may be a story attached to the second knife (with the arrow mark). It came from a great uncle who was born in the 1860s and married the daughter of a German engineer who had spent part of his life working in South Africa. That gives us a nice choice of origins for the knife. As a young man, the uncle inherited a livery stable and when he took posession, he found a Belgian single shot turn-off pistol in the cash box. I now have both the box and the pistol.

[smiling-knife]

Your welcome. The source is Ron Flook's British and Commonwealth Military Knives. s-k