Scratted Bone Coffee (Tobacco?) Pruner

[upnorth]

I like Phil's (GreatScout here) push toward Knife Lore as defined in the original concept! Hope this adds a little!
Bernie Levine was of the opinion that the art of "scratting" bone, a method of texturing bone handles, had died out in the late 1800s.
Then along came this knife. S-K found an image of this knife in a 1910-1936 Joseph Rodgers catalog reprint, after I recently bought the knife on Ebay, from a guy in Port Stanley, Ontario, where he found it in a thrift store.
So far, no-one knows how it got into the thrift store, but Port Stanley is in the middle of the so-called Tobacco Belt, where 90% of Canadian tobacco is grown. United Empire Loyalists fled their tobacco farms during the American Revolution, and introduced the crop in that region of Canada, along the north shore of Lake Ontario.
The logical route for the knife, starting out at No.6 Norfolk St. Sheffield, would be to cross the Atlantic to NY, then up the Hudson River to the Erie Canal, and finally up the canal to Lake Erie and across to Port Stanley.
That's speculation of course, but plausible IMO.
The knife has pretty high quality scratting on it, compared to the few knives I have seen with it, and is a big'un at just over 4 3/4" long, and, it measures 6.5 on the Richter scale when it snaps!!
It's one of those knives like so many, that hints at a lot of history, but has lost a lot of its story.

[Owd Wullie]

That is a magnificent knife.

[Desktop]

That is a beautiful knife!
Wow - those scales are just amazing!

[Miller Bro's]

Charlie,

Here is an oldie.

Stamped out on the blade face "Cast Steel"
No Tang stamp. Rat Tail bolsters, square joint construction.

Appears to be a gunstock pattern.
Scratted bone handles. blade has been reshaped over the years, could have been a hawk or sheepfoot blade.


M.B.

[Another Knife Collector]

Fantastic knife Upnorth! That's a great pice of history! Miller Bros, beautiful bone on yours as well , nice highlights of your collections.

[upnorth]

Nice piece, M.B! It looks like it's got that traditional "ladder" pattern of scrats down the middle of the handles. I hope I am using the words correctly.

Here are two pics I borrowed from somewhere - don't know where these knives live. One appears quite small. One looks related to yours!!

[philco]

Great old knives Charlie and M.B. You guys continue to amaze me with some of the stuff you come up with!

Charlie, I have a question for you. You have "Tobacco?" in your post. I have lived my life in central Kentucky where lots and lots of burley tobacco is grown. (Not as much now as in the past). What about that knife would relate to tobacco? Are you thinking it might be a plug cutter for someone cutting off a chew from a twist of tobacco, or is there some other purpose you think it may have been used for related to tobacco?

Phil

[upnorth]

Phil, when you grow anything there are various reasons to prune or trim the plant, maybe even harvest it. I believe the knife's purpose was horticultural. It is bigger than the usual knife you would use to prune flowers or fruit trees
But I don't know much about growing tobacco. The knife was listed in the catalog as a coffee pruner, but Ontario is not coffee country.
I don't remember who suggested it was probably imported/marketed for the tobacco farmers.

[islander]

Those are great knives I was wondering could
they be rope knives and the scratting been done
by sailors like they did scrimshaw. Just a thought

___________
Don

[upnorth]

Those are great knives I was wondering could
they be rope knives and the scratting been done
by sailors like they did scrimshaw. Just a thought

___________
Don

Don, I think a good working knife had to have a texture from the factory, and the consistency you may notice in the scratting, admittedly from a small sample, suggests a primary source.
But I'm sure people customized their favorite knives!! Scrimshaw of course, is a good example.

[Miller Bro's]

I have this one too.
A different design of scratted bone, but the blade marked "Cast Steel" like the other one.








M.B.

[upnorth]

The Scrat came back!!
Nice one, MB. It is neat to see the different patterns. It begins to create a picture of the lonely scratter, making handles for a penny a piece in the Sheffield system!!