Camillus WWII and before!

[orvet]

The list does not have any knives designated USMC.
On the supply side of things; it would have been the Dept of the Navy who ordered the knives for the Marine Corps.

There only two entries that indicate USN:
2,564,220 - “Navy 4 blade knives.”
1,711,012 - "Navy Jack Knives"

Perhaps next time I speak with Tom I will remember to ask him about the item numbers on the list and how to determine which knives or contracts they refer to. They are not Camillus model numbers as I know them, but I know Camillus had a dual number system.
They had the model number that we know the patterns by & a stock number that they used internally in the manufacturing process.

I talked to Tom today, but forgot to ask him about the numbers.


Dale

[Miller Bro's]

Dale,

Thanks, I would like to know that information if you can find out.

Here is a old hawk, the blade is etched Sword Brand.

[orvet]

Here is a copy of the sheet I got from Tom.
I am not sure of the significance of the Item Numbers.
I think they may have been Camillus' in house number for some models.

Dale

[Miller Bro's]

Dale,

If Tom has a sheet that identifies those item numbers, we would have all the answers

[Owd Wullie]

Here's a cute little advertising knife.

[msteele6]

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I love these old Camillus knives and really used to avidly collect them until the prices started getting so high, This is one of the last ones I bought. It's a little small for a moose pattern about 3 3/8" closed.

By the way, not my picture, I downloaded it from Ebay when I bought the knife.

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[upnorth]

Nice little knife, msteele6!

[orvet]

Nice Knife.
I don't think I have seen that one before.

I like it!

Dale

[msteele6]

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Here is another interesting old Camillus jack. It's an equal end serpentine ebony handled jack. I think I've only seen one other like it, an absolutely mint one with bone handles. Somebody around here could post a picture of it I think.

I downloaded the pic when I bought the knife.

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[msteele6]

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This is one of my favorite Camillus stockmen. It has a Great Western spey blade for the master. You can just make out the "..estern" etch on the master blade. The knife is a four liner.

Not a pattern you see everyday.

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[Mossdancer]

Great idea Charlie. Here is a Rope I picked up today Got a Case scout/utility also it is in scout knives.
moss

[knife7knut]

Got a bunch to post but don't have time at the moment.Thought I'd put this one out as it is one of the more unusual ones I have.Coffin shaped handle;tip bolsters,straight shield;very unusual cel scales and a 3 line stamp.

[upnorth]

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This is one of my favorite Camillus stockmen. It has a Great Western spey blade for the master. You can just make out the "..estern" etch on the master blade. The knife is a four liner.

Not a pattern you see everyday.

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SPEY master!!!
COOL!!!

[msteele6]

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Yeah, when I bought the knife I was concerned that the master was reshaped, I was really relieved when I found that I could just make out that "estern" etch on the master. The seller either couldn't see it or didn't mention it in his description.

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[msteele6]

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Here's an old bone handled jumbo jack from Camillus. The master is down a little but not too bad.

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[msteele6]

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Here's one I just bought. It's an old one with the three line marking on both blades. The master has the serif typeface and the secondary has the sans serif. Goins' dates this stamping to 1916. That's a pretty exact dating for a pocket knife stamp.

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[upnorth]

Here are three very special knives. They came from pattern sample drawers, and were given to an employee by Albert Baer.
I don't believe they were ever produced, and I feel fortunate to have them.

[Mossdancer]

Asked a Store owners permission a few days ago and he allowed me to photo this Rase on his counter. Crappy lighting and no tripod led to not the best photo's ever taken. Would anyone believe the Rase in this knife's pattern name is as in eRase like when removing marks from logs. Is this an example of the mid 40's that Dale showed a couple of pages back. Should anyone have interest this knife is available for sale in his shop. PM me if desired.
moss

[msteele6]

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Upnorth,

I posted a picture of a wooden equal end serpentine jack a little way back. It's pretty much identical to the one you have in bone.

Except, of course, that yours is much better.

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[orvet]

In February I had an opportunity to talk with Tom Williams by phone on the subject of Camillus knives and we touched on the topic of Camillus tang stamps.

I was finally able to get those notes written down and I thought those of you who are following this thread would appreciate them. I hope at some point to discuss the topic with Tom again and to add considerably more info to my notes and at some point to submit an article for publication in our club newsletter.

For now, here is a rough draft of my notes in a somewhat edited form:

SOME QUICK NOTES ON CAMILLUS TANG STAMPS.

From phone interview with
Tom Williams 2/16/10

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 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.



This is the end of my notes from this interview with Tom Williams.
For those of you who do not know who Tom is, let me provide a brief bio. -

Tom worked at Camillus Cutlery Co. for 30 years, until they closed in February 28, 2007.
He was the official Historian of Camillus Cutlery Co. His mother worked for Camillus for 55 years total.

In keeping with the topic of the thread, here is a WW II USCG life raft knife.

I hope you enjoy the pics and the info.

Dale

[msteele6]

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Orvet, really interesting information on Camillus tang stamps. I know that the stamps are just a guide to dating, but usually that guide is the only way to check what you see when you have made your age determination based on the characteristics of the knife itself and it can really help you in confirming what you think you already know.

On the knife (the teardrop) above the bone jigging is an older style that Camillus apparently used only on the older knives. I have one with the same bone (a half trapper or serpentine jack) with the same jigging. That knife is marked with the curved stamp on the secondary and the straightline stamp on the master, a combination that Goin's dates to the same approximate period. Both knives also have steel bolsters in lieu of nickel silver. That characteristic is more often (but not exclusively) found on older knives. I feel pretty confident about going with Goins' (pun unintended) dating, although not with his single year (1916). I do feel that the knife dates to the 1910's.

Thanks for the info. and nice old rope knife (I think the stamps on that one are pretty diagnostic for dating).

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[msteele6]

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Upnorth,

Those are some really great old Camillus knives. I remember the brouhaha they stirred up on Bernard Levine's forum when you posted them. I was pretty certain they were all original (especially that EE serpentine bone jack since I have one identical in ebony) but they did cause a stir, particularly that three blade knife (that's the only thing I know to call it since I can't really remember ever seeing a pattern like it before).

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[upnorth]

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Upnorth,

I posted a picture of a wooden equal end serpentine jack a little way back. It's pretty much identical to the one you have in bone.

Except, of course, that yours is much better.

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Your angled pic made me think it was a serpentine sleeveboard, as opposed to equal end!
That's a nice knife. Do you mind taking a pic flat-on to the knife?
Thanks msteele.

[msteele6]

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Here is a picture of the half trapper that I mentioned in my post above. Notice that it has the same bone and the steel bolsters just like the teardrop I posted above. This one has the curved stamping on the secondary and the straightline stamping on the master.

I saw one like this go on Ebay that was in nearly mint condition, including the full "CAMILLUS" in outlined letter etch.

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[upnorth]

Here's a strange pattern. I am sure it's correct but you almost never see them. Maybe it's what you get when you mate a Stockman with a Muskrat!!??