Camillus electrican's knife variations

[mtds]

The purpose of this post is to list a few of the variations found in one of the most widely distributed pocketknives in the last century: the Camillus electrician-pattern knife as issued to the U.S. armed forces and other agencies.

This pattern has black synthetic handle scales and no number stamped on the reverse of the spear blade. (Camillus made a civilian version of this pattern with the number 27 stamped on the reverse side of the spear blade.)

I am not knowledgeable enough to set dates on any of the variations. My objective is to post pictures of some of the variations with a brief comment or two. I hope that some the experts add information, correction, and clarification to this post.

There are many variations of this common knife and I think it has excellent collecting potential for the recreational (as opposed to investment) collector, provided that the recreational collector is the type that likes to look for small differences as opposed to the collector who collects for beauty or variety or uniqueness. This knife is easy to collect because it is widely available at very low prices; one would rarely pay $20 for an example and they can be picked up at garage sales and swap meets for a buck. On the other hand the knives were often neglected and abused and the carbon steel blades and springs are sometimes heavily corroded. Even the most recent knives may be found in very poor condition.

I've divided the variations I've observed into four categories:

1. Bail placed deep in the handle or located at the tip.
2. Number of holes drilled in each scale. In the picture below, this varies from two (main pin and bail) to five (main pin, bail, and three scale-to-liner pins).
3. Back finish: Are the scales, liners, and springs ground flat, or left as piled (uneven and and unfinished)?
4. Tang stamps. It doesn't make much sense to post a bunch of tang stamps without any dating or context, so I'll post relies to this starter post with pics of tang stamps with the knife that carries them.

I suspect that the scale material changed at least once in the last fifty years, but that is an open question for the experts. If there was a change, then that would be a fifth variation.

[mtds]

This knife has a deep bail, five holes per scale, a finished back and the underlined block-letter Camillus tang stamp.

[mtds]

This knife has a deep bail, four holes per scale, a finished back, and the underlined block-letter Camillus tang stamp.

[mtds]

This knife has a shallow bail, three holes per scale, an unfinished back, and the underlined block-letter Camillus tang stamp.

[mtds]

This knife has a shallow bail, two holes per scale, an unfinished back, and the underlined slant-letter Camillus tang stamp.

[mtds]

This knife has a shallow bail, two holes per scale, an unfinished back, and the double-lined serif-font Camillus tang stamp.

[mtds]

This knife has a shallow bail, two holes per scale, an unfinished back, and the underlined block letter tang stamp.

[trail]

I like the idea of this thread a lot, and I'm impressed by your good pictures and attention to detail. You state "The purpose of this post is to list a few of the variations found in one of the most widely distributed pocketknives in the last century: the Camillus electrician-pattern knife as issued to the U.S. armed forces and other agencies." The knife I am posting probably was never issued to the armed forces or other agencies, but it is another variation of the Camillus electricians knife. I understand that this knife was also provided to Case on contract, but mine is a Camillus. I think it is of recent vintage, as I bought it new at a hardware store about a year ago as they were disposing of all their Camillus stock.

[orvet]

Nice comparison.
There are explanations for some of the changes in the knives you have posted.
Some I know because of research, some from working on these knives and others from examples in my collection.
However to address all of these changes throughly will take more time than than I have right now.
This summer has been super busy for me, but I will try to get back here from time to time and comment on part of your observations.

OK- First comment: regarding pictures # 3 & 4 of your first post.

These are variations in the amount of finish work put in on the knives at the factory.
The last 3 or 4 years that the Camillus factory was open they were heavily indebted.
One if the ways to save money in a manufacturing environment is to save some time in the manufacturing process. Finishing the backsprings is one way to save money.

I finished a bunch of other knives from the Camillus auction for a customer. Many of them had not had the backsprings ground yet. While the worker at the factory who did these every day probably made 2 or 3 passes with each knife on 2 or maybe 3 wheels with different grits, he/she still had to handle each knife 2 or 3 times to complete the process of grinding the backsprings. I ground the ones I did, about 125 of them, on a 2" X 72" belt sander. It took me several hours as I was learning as I went. I am sure the process was far faster at Camillus, nonetheless to drop finishing that step would result in saving a few cents of labor on each knife made. When you are making millions of knives it adds up to real money very quickly.

I bought about 150 TL-29s from the Camillus auction stock. None of them had their backsprings ground.

It is my opinion that this step was dropped because of Camillus financial difficulties.
I know the earlier knives had the backsprings finished, as your pictures point out.

I hope some of our members who worked at Camillus will come in and comment on these changes.
I could be wrong about the reason.

Hope this helps,
Dale

[mtds]

Thanks, Orvet, for the explanation about the finish on the back of these knives, especially the details about the manufacturing time involved. So I'm reading this as, "A knife in this group (black scales, no model number) with a finished back is probably older than a knife with an unfinished back." Of course, keeping in mind that Camillus did what they found expedient, so we will always find exceptions.

FWIW, the "shallow bail, three holes per scale, an unfinished back, and the underlined block-letter Camillus tang stamp" knife has been in my possession since the late 60's. That makes me think they sometimes left out the finishing step (and reduced their manufacturing cost) before the very end.

Have you seen any correlation between tang stamps and back finish? For example, have you seen a slant-letter Camillus or a double-lined serif-font Camillus stamp with a finished back?

[trail]

That informative post by Orvet inspired me to pull out my five new Camillus electrician knives and look at the backsrpings. These were all bought new at the same hardware store about a year ago. Of the five, four have unfinished backsprings and one is finished.

[mtds]

my five new Camillus electrician knives and look at the backsrpings. These were all bought new at the same hardware store about a year ago. Of the five, four have unfinished backsprings and one is finished.

trail: What tang stamps are on your knives and are any of them unnumbered (no "27" on the reverse side of the spear blade)?

[trail]

One knife has the slant stamp and the other 4 have two varieties of the double bar - the difference is most noticeable to me in the S at the end of Camillus. Two of the knives are the hawksbill variety and the other three are the standard spear type, but none of them have a pattern number stamped on them. Perhaps this was another cost saving method in the end days. Regardless of the unfinished nature of these knives, they are all solid with strong snap. The one with the slant stamp is the one with the finished backsprings and also a very attractive brown synthetic handle that fades out to light near the bolster. I'm guessing it may be a bit older than the others. I have some older electrician's knives as well and I'm very fond of all of them, so I am looking forward to watching this thread grow.

[Dale Miller]

I find your TL-29 knife discussion very interesting, as I have always wondered if the knives made by Camillus under contract to the US Gov. for the WW11 war effort were marked in any way that could determine this? I have a TL-29, (also stamped TL-29 on oval (bowtie shaped shield) no tang pattern stamp, tang stamp is Camillus Cutlery Company, Camillus, NY USA. Deep bail, bail pin, with two larger and two smaller pins, back springs are ground smooth, scales are smooth rounded wood. I also have the Army Enginners/ Marine Corps issue Utility knife, is there a way to determine if this was made under Gov. Contract. The utility knife has beautiful brown scales and the same shaped shield as the TL-29, with USA stamped on shield, no pattern stamps, same Camillus Cutlery Company stamp as the TL-29.

thanks for info.
D. Miller

[trail]

Here's another variation, guessing this is an older knife, perhaps even WWII military issue - deep bail, five holes, single-line block stamp, no pattern number, back finished. The difference - wooden handle with TL-29 stamped into the wood.

Here's a hypothesis to prove or disprove - deep bail, older knife, shallow bail, newer knife. More holes, older knife, less holes, newer knife. Double bar stamp, newer knife, but single bar variations may have been used right up until the end too.

[FRJ]

Here's another variation:

Shallow bail, two holes, plastic handles, CAMCO USA, pattern number, back unfinished, half stops.

I wonder when this was made.... ?


Where did "TL29" come from?

[orvet]

Where did "TL29" come from?
[/quote]

From the US Army Signal Corps.
It stands for TOOL, LINESMAN, 29
It was used with the TOOL, LINESMAN, 13A - a pair of pliers.

They were carried in a POUCH TYPE CS-34 - leather pouch
or in POUCH CS-35A which was the web carrier made when leather was in short supply.

Note, this military nomenclature is from WWII, pouch nomenclature for WWI may have been different.

History:
The TL-29 was introduced for the US Army Signal Corps prior to WWI. The new invention of the telephone greatly increased communication on the battlefield. You had field phones (hard wire phones) instead of runners, (soldiers on foot running from trench to trench to carry messages and orders).

The hard wire field phone let people communicate instantly over the battlefield and even to the rear, but it required a lot of men to run the wire and to repair the broken, cut, blown up, etc wires. That was the job of the lineman. The TL-29 & TL-13 were some of the Linesman's key tools.

Here are some quick pics of the pouch with the tools.

I hope this helps,
Dale

[FRJ]

Dale, your post helps a great deal. I really like those snippets of history.

Amazing, keeping a hard line phone up and running on a battle field.

I'm glad I asked. Thank you for that lesson.

So, where does my knife fit in the scheme of things? I'm curious about the CAMCO name and the date.
Can you tell me? Thanks again.

[Dale Miller]

Being real new at this I haven't as yet learned how to attach pictures, but as I mentioned in earler reply I have TL-29, with the TL-29 stamped on handle shield. Does this shield have a bearing on the year knife was made?

D. Miller

[orvet]

Hey Joe & Dale,
I am always glad to share a little history. The historical dimension of collecting is as interesting to me as the knives them selves at times.

I have been working with Tom Williams who was the Historian for Camillus Cutlery Co. to set up some lists of Camillus knives much like what I did with Schrade, (see the Research Section here on AAPK under Schrade). There are a number of reasons that that is a much more difficult task with Camillus than it was with Schrade. Nonetheless, I am working on it.

I am going to post some notes that I have posted in another topic here in the Camillus Collectors Forum. The topic is “Camillus WWII and Before,” about page 4.



Joe- The CAMCO name was introduced in 1948 as a low price alternative to the regular Camillus brand. I would guesstimate your knife from the 1960s or 1970s.

Dale – Here is a link to explain how to post pics: http://www.allaboutpocketknives.com/kni ... 63&t=12128

The shield would very likely have bearing on the year the knife was made.
What does the shield say? What is the handle material?

These are the notes from my interview with Tom Williams, February 16, 2010

The Camillus brand name was first used in 1902.
The name "Sword Brand" was first used in 1906.
Sword Brand was the best quality. They were the top line produced by Camillus.

The tang stamp with the word "Camillus" arched on the top line was used around World War I.
Prior to World War II most stamps were four-line stamps: CAMILLUS/CUTLERY CO./CAMILLUS N.Y./U.S.A.
On smaller knives the USA was dropped, making it a three-line tang stamp to fit on smaller tangs.

After World War II the word "CUTLERY" was dropped from the tang stamps and never used again with the exception of the Marine Raider Stiletto reproduction and the A425 (USCG knife) reproductions of the 1990s. In both reproductions the original tang stamps had been saved and were used on the reproduction knives.

The four-line tang stamp was dropped around 1945 or 1946. There were a large number of parts left over from wartime orders that were canceled at the end of the war. Two or three days after the atomic bombs were dropped in Japan Camillus received a cancellation of an order for 250,000 ML-K knives, (sometimes called demo of knives).
Since Camillus was actively producing this order at the time of cancellation there was a great number of left over parts. Camillus continued to produce knives with the four-line stamp until they ran out of blades that had already been manufactured with the four-line stamp prior to the cancellation of the DOD order. How many years it took them to use up the blades (tens of thousands?) that had already been made for the wartime orders is not known.

Sword Brand knives-
Prior to World War II Sword Brand was stamped on the Sword Brand knives. After the war most of the Sword Brand knives had the Sword Brand etched on the blade instead of stamp on the tang.

Camco brand knives-
1948 marks the introduction of the Camco brand. There were no Camco knives made prior to 1948.
In the mid 1980s there were some Camco knives made at the Schrade factory in Ireland. This is where the Irish Camco knives came from.

1963-Albert Baer, then the owner of the Ulster Knife Company and Schrade Walden bought out the remaining stock of Camillus Cutlery Company that was held by the Kastor family and the Wallace family, after the death of Alfred Kastor, the son of Adolph Kastor. Adolph Kastor had emigrated from Germany to the United States in the 1830s.

Tips on Dating Camillus Knives

Part of the purpose of this interview with Tom was to help establish some guidelines for dating Camillus knives by tangs stamps. Tom maintains that dating Camillus by tang stamps is next to impossible, as Camillus never threw tang stamps away. They were kept on a shelf in the factory. Tom told me that there were times when someone would get the wrong stamp off the shelf and they would produce a run of knives with an old tang stamp. Add to that the fact that there were often many extra blades produced in a production run; some for warrantee claims, and perhaps because they anticipated additional sales. If the overrun blades were never used up in the original production run, or by a reorder, they were nonetheless kept and usually used at a later date in other knives. The World War II cancellation of the ML-K knife contract is an excellent example of this.

Tom suggested the best way to date Camillus knives is to look at the materials, technology and manufacturing techniques used in the production of the knife in question.

Looking at the handles is an excellent way to apply this method of dating.
Delrin was introduced to Camillus knives in the early 1970s.
Early scales were pinned onto the liners.
Later a prong construction method was used. In this method a piece of the liner was stamped and bent outward and the hot prong was pushed into the handle material.
A third method of attaching handles to the knife was called stud construction. In this method a piece of handle material (the stud) was pushed through a hole in the liner. I have observed this method on many the later production TL-29 electrician knives. It appears to me that a heat source was used to flare the end of the stud so that it would not pull out of the liner. I have worked on a number of knives with this method of construction and generally the stud type handles are very secure and difficult to remove from the liners. It was a very effective method.

Tom pointed out that even these methods of dating Camillus knives are not foolproof. Changes could be made in the middle of a production run depending on the availability of parts. If they had an order for 10,000 knives and they had pre-made 5000 liners for prong type handles they would begin the production run with the prong type parts and switch over to stud type handles when they had exhausted the pre-existing supply.

- End of interview notes -


There are a number of things in the notes from this interview that have a direct bearing on the knives in this thread.
If you notice in the pictures that mtds posted, he mentioned the numbers of pins in the scales (handles). The only pins that really count as scale pins are those that only hold the scales on.
The pin at the very end of the knife is the rear pin, which holds the back of the knife together. That is its main function. The fact that it holds the scale as well is secondary to its main purpose of holding the knife together.
The same is true of the rocker pin, the pin that is approximately in the middle of the knife at the bottom. The rocker pin holds the backsprings in place so that there is tension on the blade in the blades are open. It coincidently helps to hold the scales in place.
The same is true of the rivet that holds on the bail in the case of the deep bails. Its primary purpose is to hold the bail on, not to hold the handle.
Only the pins that hold the scales to the liner are normally called scale pins.

If you look at the second picture in mtds’ first post in this topic you will see where he has four knives with different pin configurations. Only the bottom knife has no handle pins. I have a bunch of Camillus TL-29s that are of this construction. These are the most recent of the handle variations. These are what Tom referred to as "stud construction" handles. A ‘stud’ of handle material protrudes through two holes in the liner and are melted off on the inside of the liner to hold the handle to the liner. These are very secure handles and nearly impossible to take apart. I will try to take some pictures next time I disassembled one of these.

Tom also mentioned "prong construction" in the interview. I have seen from construction used on some Camillus knives, however I have not seen it used in the TL-29 pattern.

I hope this information is helpful.
I realize it will probably raise as many questions as it answers, so ask more questions and I will get to them as I have time.

I hope you all enjoy collecting Camillus knives & TL-29s as much as I do.
Dale

[Dale Miller]

Dale (orvet customs) Thanks for your time and effort in posting such great information on the TL-29 and Camillus knives in General. I am not very good with these computers, but I will learn to post pictures in the future, thanks for the help. My orginal interest was sparked by the fact I have what I thing is a ww11 goverment issue utility knife, it has great brown bone jigged handles, the 4 line Camillus stamp and shield with USA stamped on it and a TL-29 with it stamped on the same shaped shield as the utility knife. Quite a nice knife for a goverment issue. To add to the History lesson, I was surprised to learn that camillus was allowed to keep anything left over from the war production effort, here in Michigan, almost all our plants were convereted to war production, from B 24 bombers to canteens and everything in between. At the end of the war, everything was destroyed by the DOD, from the machinery they had provided, production in process and all raw materials. One of the most interesting facts is that even the scrap metal was buried and not sent to the scrap yard, desks, lighting fixtures and all associated items were crushed and buried. The reason for this total destruction of this war based economy was the simple fact the goverment didn't want these items to wind up in the main stream economy at the end of the war. It was a good move, as when the soldiers returned home, there were jobs, as everything in the manufacturing community had to be rebuilt.

Thanks again, Dale Miller

[mtds]

Thanks for a great post. Just what I was hoping to get when I started this thread: an opportunity to learn more about this pattern.

You said, Delrin was introduced to Camillus knives in the early 1970s.

Orvet, do you know offhand what material was used before the Delrin?

[orvet]

My orginal interest was sparked by the fact I have what I thing is a ww11 goverment issue utility knife, it has great brown bone jigged handles, the 4 line Camillus stamp and shield with USA stamped on it and a TL-29 with it stamped on the same shaped shield as the utility knife. Quite a nice knife for a goverment issue.

Dale,
Similar to this one which has no shield?

I would love to see a picture of yours.
My email address is in my signature line below. If you can email it to me, I can post it.

You said, Delrin was introduced to Camillus knives in the early 1970s.

Orvet, do you know offhand what material was used before the Delrin?

Well, for all TL-29 companies in general:
Wood definitely was used pre-WWII; bone, some Bakelite and I imagine some use of celluloid as well.

I see where this little topic is going to continue to grow, probably for a few months yet. I am going to need to check with Tom Williams with a list of questions, go through a pile of paper copies and electronic copies of production records, S-cards, and some military production records that he has already sent me. There is a lot to go through and I have only limited time in a day to devote to it.
It's summertime, and for those of you who were wondering; yes, I really do have a life off AAPK.
I have some family events coming up in the next few weeks as well as a big backlog of knife repairs and custom orders I need to get out. Keep the discussion going and I will contribute as I can.

There are lots of people who know about these knives, I'm learning along with everyone else. Look how much we have learned so far from mtds’ posts so far!
Learning is not about knowing the answers; it is about asking the right questions!

Dale

[Miller Bro's]

This is a very interesting thread
I must say I never thought there was very much interest in these knives.
I have owned at least a 100 or more over the years, gave most away and sold the rest.
Never really paid much attention to them , UNLESS they had Bone handles!

I have a dozen or more laying around that I will photogragh and post pictures of when I get the time.


"The four-line tang stamp was dropped around 1945 or 1946. There were a large number of parts left over from wartime orders that were canceled at the end of the war. Two or three days after the atomic bombs were dropped in Japan Camillus received a cancellation of an order for 250,000 ML-K knives, (sometimes called demo of knives).
Since Camillus was actively producing this order at the time of cancellation there was a great number of left over parts. Camillus continued to produce knives with the four-line stamp until they ran out of blades that had already been manufactured with the four-line stamp prior to the cancellation of the DOD order. How many years it took them to use up the blades (tens of thousands?) that had already been made for the wartime orders is not known."

Dale, this is very interesting to me. I bought many years ago a box of Camillus U.S.A. utility knives from a closed military base out west that was in storage from the end of WWII. All the tangs are stamped with the 4-line address, except one that has the 3-line address.

So, maybe they did not have that many left over blades after all, or they changed the stamp in 1944-45 before the war ended. I believe there is a military order number stamped on the box, if somehow someone could look up that number and find out when that order was delivered, it would be proof that the 3-line stamp could have been used well before 1946.

[Vit_213]

My Camillus Electrician knives - three generations of TL-29

Tang stamps