orvet wrote:Here are a few examples of the Outers pattern. The pattern was first made by Marbles and eventually copies by most major knife makers. Codger did some research on the Outers Pattern, perhaps he would be so good as to share it with us?
Dale
Chasing patterns... Imperial Outer's
Mrs. Gump: I happen to believe you make your own collection. You have to do the best with what Schrade gave you.
Forrest Gump: What's in my collection, Mama?
Mrs. Gump: You're gonna have to figure that out for yourself. Knives are like a box of chocolates, Forrest. You never know what you're gonna get.
As in the above paraphrase, you never know where Schrade knife research will lead. I decided to look closer at the Imperial hunting knife pattern. They were made as Imperials and as Hammer Brands, and they came from a slightly simpler pattern, what I found to be called the Outer’s pattern . This one I followed from the script stamped Imperials back to Marbles Safety Ax Company in 1930. And the surprise, another knife pattern it replaced that they made in 1902-1930.
The Marble's Safety Axe Company released the original Dall DeWeese hunting knife in 1902 and it went out of production in about 1930. DeWeese was a big-game hunter from Canon City, Colorado, famous at the time. His intent with this design was to create "the lightest, most compact utility knife which could be made."
The DeWeese knife featured a high-carbon cutlery steel blade 4 1/4 long and the overall length was just 7 3/4" (very typical sizing for fixed blades of the time). It had a "dull saw back" for placing the thumb on the spine while working.
Dall DeWeese was an adventurer, horticulturist, entrepreneur, and amateur paleontologist who hunted with Teddy Roosevelt on several occasions. His trips to Alaska inspired him to write to Roosevelt and led to the establishment of game laws there as well as the Kanai penninsula reserve.
When the Marble's DeWeese hunter was discontinued in 1930 this knife, the Outer's, replaced it in their line-up. These sold for about a dollar during the Great Depression and were styled after kitchen knives but with stout, full-tang construction. Marble's did not make these after World War II. They were 7 1/2" long and overall with a 4 1/4" upswept (trailing point) blade. The steel was high-carbon. The Outer’s pattern knife used, instead of a cast or flat metal guard, a swelled bolster, again very popular today on custom and some production fixed blade knives.
Although Marbles quit making the Outer’s pattern (except for a 500 pc. Limited edition in 2003), quite a few other cutlerys picked it up, some keeping the basic blade, bolster, and flat slab jigged bone handles, and some opting to modify the pattern with an oval aluminum, steel, nickle silver or brass guard.
Outer's pattern knives from Western, Colonial, Imperial, Queen City and quite a few other makers will be seen, and some as yet unconfirmed knives with the Imperial stamp in script.
This is the research rant Dale was refering to as posted in May of this year. As with all of my research, there are a wide variety of resources used, and in the never ending battle for truth, justice, and the Am....well, a researcher's work is never done. Just recently a new bit of info came up. In re-reading BR Levine's older guide (ISBN:0-910676-94-1), I came across this:
"One of today's leading American producers of hunting knives is Western Cutlery Company of Colorado. Western, then called Western States, made it's first hunting knife in 1928.
The first pattern that Western States made was the number 63, an inexpensive scale-tang self-guard little knife. This design was copied a few years later by Marble's as the "Outer's".
So.... Remington, Western, Jean Case, Queen City, Colonial, Utica, Imperial, and all the others did not, in fact copy Webster Marble's creation. They all copied Platt's!
Codger
