Craftsman 95233 Lockback........

[knife7knut]

Picked this up this morning at the local flea market. Looks to have had very little use.Were these made by Schrade? The reason I ask is the blade looks like it almost has a crocus polish whereas the LB7's have a more machine finish.Nice knife for $10.

[kootenay joe]

Camillus made. Albert Baer had the Sears contract from back into 1930's i think and he had Camillus make the vast majority of the Craftsman branded knives.
Look at the front bolsters of an LB7 and the 'shoulder' ? area is flat whereas a Camillus made knife the bolster is curved where the Schrade is flat.
kj

Edit to add 2 pics of a Schrade LB7. The serial # is on the 'flat' area of bolster. This area is a continual curve in the Camillus LB's of the same size.

[knife7knut]

Camillus made. Albert Baer had the Sears contract from back into 1930's i think and he had Camillus make the vast majority of the Craftsman branded knives.
Look at the front bolsters of an LB7 and the 'shoulder' ? area is flat whereas a Camillus made knife the bolster is curved where the Schrade is flat.
kj

Thanks Roland I appreciate the feedback.

[KnifeSlinger#81]

Nice knife for $10, I would have grabbed that in a heartbeat.

[orvet]

Camillus made. Albert Baer had the Sears contract from back into 1930's i think and he had Camillus make the vast majority of the Craftsman branded knives.
Look at the front bolsters of an LB7 and the 'shoulder' ? area is flat whereas a Camillus made knife the bolster is curved where the Schrade is flat.
kj

Edit to add 2 pics of a Schrade LB7. The serial # is on the 'flat' area of bolster. This area is a continual curve in the Camillus LB's of the same size.

Roland,
you're absolutely correct that is a Camillus knife.

You are also correct that Albert Baer was the sales genius who was able to get Camillus into Sears and Roebuck, the big market analogous to Wal-Mart today. Albert was apparently a quite a personable fellow and the folks at Sears really liked him and bought a lot of knives from him.

Albert Baer went to work for Adolph Kastor in 1922 when he was 16 years old.
He quit working for the Kastor family about 1940 apparently there was some hard feelings.
When Albert Baer purchased Ulster in 1941 his loyal customers at Sears followed him.

In my interviews with Tom Williams of Camillus Cutlery, Tom said Camillus made a most of the knives for Sears until Albert Baer departed circa 1940. He said they got almost no business aside from Sears, aside from contracts that were in place when Albert Baer left Camillus, until after Albert Baer purchased the remaining Camillus stock from the Kastor and Wallace families in 1963.
At that point Sears was thoroughly committed to having Schrade provide the bulk of their cutlery and it was some years after that before Camillus once again started to produce knives for Sears.

Apparently Albert Baer got along very well with the folks at Sears and not only was he loyal to his customers, his customer, (at least in the case of Sears), were in turn loyal to him.

Prior to 1940 Camillus provided most of Sears knives. We know of course that manufacturing supplies for the civilian cutlery market were drastically curtailed during World War II, but after the war Ulster & Schrade Walden supplied most of Sears’ cutlery. After Albert Baer became the sole owner of Camillus, Sears did indeed by Camillus products. However, to the best of my recollections from my interviews with Tom, Camillus was never again the nearly exclusive provider of cutlery to Sears, they share the production with Schrade.

[Tsar Bomba]

Thank you for fleshing out the Camillus history a little further, Dale. It is a pleasure to have such encyclopedic knowledge available here on AAPK.

I must say I'm a little surprised that Baer was uninvolved with Camillus between 1940-1963, a period of time in which I'm sure you (and Jerry) would agree Camillus had some of their most interesting innovations go to market. Considering they were clearly still making excellent products, even if not building knives under so many outside marques as in decades past, I wonder why they had issues selling knives when this seemed to be the heyday of Schrade, Boker, Case, and soon Buck, Gerber, etc. Did Baer really bring such networking power to the company that his absence caused them significant financial strain?

An interesting part of knife-collecting is finding out about all these powerful personalities that drove the industry in this country (and in England, Germany, etc.) that led to some big acquisitions and momentous changes to the industry itself. I appreciate all you offer here, Dale, any time you're willing to sit and write about it!

[kootenay joe]

Thanks Dale. I did not know that Albert Baer was NOT involved with Camillus 1940-63. I had thought that he was a significant shareholder in Camillus during that time and then bought out the other shareholders in 1963.
You say that from 1940-63 Schrade Cut. Co. and then Schrade-Walden provided most of the Craftsman knives, but what about Ulster Co. which Albert acquired in 1941 ? How much did Ulster contribute to the Craftsman knives ?
kj

[btrwtr]

Great looking knife and info Roland!

[orvet]

While Albert Baer was not working for Camillus between 1940 and 1963 he did retain his stock in the company. I assume that stock was a substantial amount because he had purchased it according to one source at every opportunity he had since he began working there are. I think some stock may have been given to him for performance. It is my understanding that Albert Baer and Adolph Kastor were very close but Albert did not get along as well with Alfred Kastor, Adolph’s son.

I doubt Albert’s presence was missed from the sales department of Camillus until after World War II. Most records seem to indicate that little civilian production of cutlery was taking place during the war, although there was some, but most production was geared towards military contracts. We know from their own records that Camillus made somewhere in the vicinity of 17 million knives during World War II.

After the end of the war I am sure Ulster picked up a few contracts but then in 1946 Albert Baer, through the Ulster/Imperial/Kingston Consortium purchased Schrade Cutlery Company. From looking at the catalogs and the promotions done in those days I think Albert was putting his eggs in the Schrade Walden basket as opposed to Ulster. Just a little over 10 years later Schrade and Ulster are in the same building and they are for all intents and purposes the same company. I think one can even make the case that the Ulster brand was being phased out prior to Schrade Walden moving into the same building with Ulster. For the practical purposes of the discussion at hand I think of Ulster and Schrade Walden as pretty much the same company.

Were there a few Ulster made Craftsman knives between the end of the war and Albert’s acquisition of Schrade Cutlery Company? I would not be surprised to find that there are such knives; I have not personally seen the evidence of them.

[kootenay joe]

Ans thanks again Dale. This really is interesting history/information that you have posted. Collecting knives is much more rewarding when some of a knife companies history is known,
kj