All About Pocket Knives

I need a lesson on the history of knives stamped Camco. How do they fit into the Camillus time line?

thanks in advance,.

J

I have seen Camco knives aroud for along time and dint have a clue that they were made by Camillus till about two weeks ago

Hopefully CAMCO (Tom Williams) will see this post & give us a history lesson.

Dale

I really like the older Camcos as well. I use this one as an EDC. Am curious to the type of steel used, as it can get scary razor sharp!

-BluesKat

Here's an old Camco I've had since the late 70's

The CAMCO line was introduced in 1948. CAMCO knives were less expensive than the Camillus and Silver Sword brands and many were etched or hot stamped with customer's names to be used as give-aways (advertising line). Many of the character knives like the Lone Ranger and Dick Tracy knives were part of the CAMCO line.
I have some sales literature showing the CAMCO line and I will ask Orvet to post it here.
Most of the CAMCO knives were made at the Camillus factory, but during the 1980's some knives were made in Ireland by a company owned by Albert Baer.

Tom Williams

Thanks Tom.

I managed to find the http://www.camillus link last night and read the history books. Also saw the Camco flyers from 1948, ..... cool stuff!

Jaye

Send it to me Tom.
I will scan it & post it when I get back from the show next week.

Dale

Hey Tom, any idea when the snap-it knives (flylock) were made by Camco or litature on them? thanks

I believe the CAMCO "Snap-It" knife was made in the late 1940's or 1950's (definitely prior to the Federal 1958 switchblade law). I have never seen any advertising material on this knife. I may have some manufacturing records.
Mr. Wallace and Mr. Share may have gotten a patent on this design in the 1940's (these men were Camillus employees).

Tom Williams

Thanks Tom, I would certainly be interested in any information you can come up with regarding the "Snap-It" knife. History of these our treasured toys really interests me as much as the toys.

CAMCO wrote:The CAMCO line was introduced in 1948. CAMCO knives were less expensive than the Camillus and Silver Sword brands and many were etched or hot stamped with customer's names to be used as give-aways (advertising line). Many of the character knives like the Lone Ranger and Dick Tracy knives were part of the CAMCO line.
I have some sales literature showing the CAMCO line and I will ask Orvet to post it here.
Most of the CAMCO knives were made at the Camillus factory, but during the 1980's some knives were made in Ireland by a company owned by Albert Baer.

Tom Williams

Good to his word Tom sent me some information on the history of Camillus & Camco.
Perhaps Tom can give us a rough time frame of when the flyers were published.

My apologies for not posting these earlier, but my wife had to have some kidney stones removed.

Dale

More Camco flyers from Tom

Is this great stuff or what!

A pocketknife shaped like a rocket ship, with “a genuine red plastic mooring thong!”
A pocketknife with a magnifying glass & a whistle!
A Davy Crocket pocketknife with a lucky rabbit foot!
Every boy worth his salt in the 1950s has a lucky rabbit foot.

For me this is a stroll down memory lane.
Thank you for sharing these Tom.

Dale

Great stuff

Dale,
Thank you for posting the CAMCO ad sheets. Most of these are from the 1950's. Surprising what a $1.00 would buy back then.
I will send you a copy of THE KNIFE MAKERS WHO WENT WEST book in the next package. This is a great reference book for Western knives.

Tom Williams

Way cool! Nifty! Keen! That stuff brings back my youth in spades! If only I'd invested my pennies differently (sniff ).
Camco and Orvet, thanks for the trip down memory lane !!

A Davy Crockett Knife.....King of the wild fronteeeer !

Who had a hat ?

Fran

I actually had a Davy Crockett coonskin cap! They were cool......(way before "cool" was a term in our language that referred to anything but temperature).
But I never had the knife. However I did have a Roy Rogers cap pistol.
I used my Davy Crocket coonskin cap (after the tail had parted company with the rest of the hat), my Roy Rogers pistol and my Cocker Spaniel to play Sergeant Preston of the RCMP. The fur hat (sans tail) made a pretty convincing Mountie hat. My Cocker pup was a bit lacking in size to be King (a German Shepherd) but she had heart!

We had great imaginations in those days, (before everyone had TV & long before Al Gore had invented the internet) and such an eclectic outfit was as good as the real thing in 1956, when I was 5 years old!

Dale

I'm bringing up this old thread because I found my coon cap.

I've had this one for years and had one as a kid (we used to watch the Daniel Boone TV show).

I read the thread back in may 2008 but couldn't find the cap at the time, today I was cleaning up some stuff, and there it was, a bit crushed between two old jackets, but still in good shape.

He he, you probably wouldn't expect to see one of these in Mexico.

I included a couple of Camillus knives, so as not to be too far off topic.

Luis


Click to enlarge

Outstanding Don Luis! Great cap!
Thank you for remembering and posting it.

Thinking back, I wonder what kind of fur they were made from?
I suppose the same rabbits who donated their feet for the Lucky Rabbit's Foot that was put on the knife Davy Crockett knife, also donated their skins for the "Coon Skin" caps!

Come to think of it, I recall seeing rabbit fryers in the grocery stores back in the 1950s.
I can't remember when the last time I saw rabbit in the supermarket.

Ah yes, ..................."'Twas in another lifetime....." -Bob Dylan


Dale

I guess this is really getting off topic, but I read once that rabbit was common in grocery stores and butcher shops until WWII. Wartime meat shortages meant that a lot of the rabbit in the market was actually cat. This pretty much destroyed the market for rabbit in the US.

CAMCO wrote:I believe the CAMCO "Snap-It" knife was made in the late 1940's or 1950's (definitely prior to the Federal 1958 switchblade law). I have never seen any advertising material on this knife. I may have some manufacturing records.
Mr. Wallace and Mr. Share may have gotten a patent on this design in the 1940's (these men were Camillus employees).

Tom Williams

Tom, were you ever to dig up any manufacturing records on the Snap-it knife? I would really be interested should you. thanks.

Alex

Alex,
Tom has not been signed into AAPK since April.
I talked to him last month & he has been very busy building a shop and getting it set up.
Once winter sets in in upstate NY, I think we will see him back in the forum.

You might try sending him an email through his profile.

Dale

Well needed info on Camco as picked up this old 772 ,love this knife, great info here so a little bump