All About Pocket Knives

You sure have a fantastic collection greedy, that english jack is amazing! What a find. There are some BEAUTIFUL knives in this thread. Therefore, it needs to be bumped up. Here is a very old Boker swell center pen knife with pretty mother of pearl scales (As usual with mother of pearl, the pictures do not do it justice). It is stamped R & H. BOKER REMSCHEID CASTSTEEL on the mark side, and the tree with B B adjacent on the back side. Both blades are horizontally stamped. Mr. Zalesky indicates that (H&R Boker Remscheid Cast Steel) is from 1837-1860 while the tree marking with B B adjacent is 1867-1880's. Can any one help in the narrowing down process for these dates? Perhaps, this is pre 1869 when the Boker factory was moved to Solingen? Thanks,

Nice little pen knife, I really like the bolsters

Thanks Beechtree. That's a really nice, old & rare Boker you posted. Mark's dates are probably about as accurate as you can hope for. Goin's Encyclopedia of Cutlery Markings 4th edition, has this tang stamp dated from 1848 - 1869 while Mark dates it circa. 1837 - 1860. As you can see, they are almost identical on the time frame for this tang stamp. Goin's book also shows the tree emblem with BB beside it as being from 1848. Anyway you look at it, it's an OLD one. I hope this helps & thanks for posting the pictures.

MB, I too really like the bolsters. An interesting note about their construction, it looks as if the grooves ornamenting them were added after the blade pivot pins were put in as the groove transverses over them (observable on the side without a crack in it).

Thanks Greedy. I figured those dates were as close as I could come. It's great just to be able to have a date range this narrow, thanks to some peoples hard work. It does look like an old, although I am not sure that by its construction I could figure the date it was made any closer. The horizontal stamps are an interesting feature though.

I have an old BOKER with same circa 1837-40 tang stamp but under the word REMSHEID is a man's name 'Daniel Butz"
any input??? The knife is in perfect shape and how they got 4 lines on the blade I will never know.

Found this old thread trying to do some research and thought I would add a picture...

This is just a WILD guess.
Here is a link to a Google book entitled THE OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE REGION OF DUSSELDORF: 1846.
Best I can make out, it appears to be something about a "Federmesserfabricant" (pen knife maker) in Merscheid named Daniel Butz who wants to do something with a "steam machine".
Maybe he was part of the cottage industry in the region at the time who made knives under contract with a larger firm. in this case being H&R Boker. In 1909, evidence was presented that showed that 75% of knives made in Solingen were manufactured using the cottage industry structure. In the mid-to-late 1800s, one could assume that the percentage was much higher.

https://books.google.com/books?id=Nxs_A ... id&f=false
Perhaps Daniel Butz was the specialist who forged blades for H&R Boker. Perhaps he stamped his name at the bottom in addition to the Boker tang stamp in order to ensure that he was properly paid by the assembly factory for his work.
All this is pure conjecture of course, but the evidence is certain that there was a pen knife maker in the Solingen vicinity by the name of Daniel Butz!

I also saw a mention on a genealogy website of a PETER DANIEL BUTZ, born in Solingen July 20, 1797.
Could this be the same guy? I do not know.... He is in the right geographical location and is of the proper age.
THIS Peter Daniel Butz was the son of Johann Peter Butz and Anna Catherine Koch.

By the way, all these place names get me confused sometimes. Here is a map showing Solingen, Merscheid, Remscheid, and Dusseldorf.
They are really close together.

H. Boker & Co.'s Improved Cutlery.

H. Boker & Co.'s Improved Cutlery.

Beautiful old knives, greeds.
Love the handsome jack. How long is it?

Thanks FRJ: The bone handled jack is 3 & 5/8" and the celluloid is 3 & 9/16" long.

I really like the "french ivory" Boker!

H. Boker's Improved Cutlery. Circa 1860 - 1880's.

BEAUTIFUL knife, Roger!
Unusual to see the two small blades at the fat end of the knife like that.

Thanks Ricky. It is an unusual little whittler pattern.

Beautiful knives!

Thanks MRB.

H. Boker & Co Solingen.

H. Boker & Co Solingen.

Roger with some elbow grease you might be able to get that scribble off those blades. Those are fine knives.

As usual, more beautiful knives. I always enjoy your show, greeds.

peanut740 wrote:Roger with some elbow grease you might be able to get that scribble off those blades. Those are fine knives.

FRJ: Thank you!

Thanks Roger: Unfortunately, it looks like someone actually had that idea in mind on the first stag lockback with a saw blade.

I'm new to this board so I'll introduce myself here. I'm Yehuda, yes, that's my real name, and this is my new/old H. Böker & Co's Improved Cutlery folder. Cool eh?!