Antique Pocket Knife Handle Dies

[Miller Bro's]

It has been getting a little boring around here in Knife Lore lately, so I thought I would post something different that has to do with antique pocket knives that you just don`t see every day.

These are steel Dies used to impress any particular design or advertising onto a sheet of metal to produce the handles for pocket knives.

One of the dies is recessed the other matching one is raised, a thin sheet of metal is placed between the two, and under pressure the metal is embossed to the design you see on these examples I have shown.

Most of these dies you may find are just simple line designs, but every once and a while you find some elaborately designed ones.

These examples are from a knife factory in Germany they date from 1910-1930 or so. One of them is of an old early airplane and there are hot air baloons in the background so you can get a rough date from the airplane. I will post that one later.

Unfortunately many of these were scrapped as they wore out or when defunct knife factories closed they were sold for scrap or thrown away. Nobody ever thought to save them for posterity. Needless to say very few of the really old antique handle dies exist today. It is amazing how these were hand cut to the desired design back then. Just look at the detail in the close up pictures, it must have taken quite a while to produce an exact set of these back then. Today they can probably produce these on a CNC machine in a matter of minutes?

If you look closely you can see the tool marks from the engraving process in the area outside the engraved design.

Anyone else out there have any of these?? I would like to see them, they never cease to amaze me

[ObsidianEdge]

Those are really cool. Never seen them before. Any idea what company used them?

[Miller Bro's]

Mike,

None of them are marked.

They came back from Germany with a WW II vet after the war.

[Owd Wullie]

The top one represents a "Scheutzenfest" Which was nothing more than a gathering of target shooters. They used very elaborate single shot rifles and always shot "offhand" or standing.

[cattaraugus57]

great post! very interesting indeed.
I love this place!

[Miller Bro's]

Catt,

Glad you are enjoying the thread!

This is my favorite one, It has a Hot Air Balloon, Airplane and a Zepplin.

I wonder if Willie knows what era this plane came from

[Owd Wullie]

The plane looks very reminiscent of the Frenchman. Luis Bleriot's plane.

He flew one remarkably similar to that across the English Channel in 1909.

"Rigid" airships or "zeppelins" were coming into their own shortly after that and were used to bomb London in WWI.

So I don't know if that dates the stamp or the stamp commemorates an event. Either way I think it represents the early part of the 20th Century.

[Miller Bro's]

Thanks Willie

I figured about 1910-30 on these dies, judging from the scenes and the items depicted.

Rigid" airships or "zeppelins" were coming into their own shortly after that and were used to bomb London in WWI.

So I don't know if that dates the stamp or the stamp commemorates an event.

IMO it pretty much dates the stamp

[gringo]

i believe it is a german fokker, also, the shape of the zepplin pushs the date of the "art" into the mid twenties.
the first four or five zepplin were water launched, no floats on this bird.
check out this site..
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/we ... decker.jpg

i have had one of these knives in my hand, i believed it was a tourist item at the time...that was years ago, so...just an opinion...

[Miller Bro's]

Gringo,

It looks pretty close to me, very interesting

[Owd Wullie]

That Fokker had the shape, but it has a covered empennage. Both Bleriot's plane and the Fokker were monoplanes. Bleriot's plane had no covering on the empennage.

http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/bleriot.html

Note the tail wheel on Beriot's plane. The tail wheel on the stamp appears to be a dual set up. Artistic license perhaps? The shape of the tail is different on the stamp as well. The plane represented on the stamp appears to be over water and headed for land.

We'll never know for sure.

[Miller Bro's]

Willie,

The plane on the right is the one he made his famous flight in, the one on the left is another palane he designed a model 9? The one on the left picture is similar, but the one on the right I am not seeing the cables that hold up the wings, etc. in front of the pilot like the stamp has

What do you think............

[gringo]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationaala ... 025477091/

[Owd Wullie]

The rest of the Fokker in Gringo's link
http://www.abar.de/serie/index.php/abschnitt-1/02

D,

The top flying wires are there, you just can't see them in those grainy pictures. The wires were used to keep the wings from folding down and another set was under the wings to keep them from folding up as well.


A side note about Anzani engines. All the aircraft engines I've ever seen are three cylinder. They have a horrible reputation for reliability. Sometime back in the thirties the CAA ( now the FAA ) required that the cylinders have a cable attached to the both the cylinder and the crank case. Reason being that the general failure mode involved blowing a jug completely off the engine where it would then free fall to the ground. Apparently more than one caused damage or injury. Hence, the rule was enacted and is in force to this day. There are a few old antiques out there still equipped with the Anzani 3 engines.

[tjmurphy]

This is a WWI cigarette lighter that I have in my collection. One side depicts a zeppelin and the other an airplane. On the outside edge of the ligher is the inscription "Verdun 1918 Coporal Smith".

[Miller Bro's]

TJ,

That lighter is well done

The date on your lighter and the date of my stamp are from the same time period

[tjmurphy]

Thanks Dimitri - If you're interested in such nonsense here are two more from WWI. The first with the rooster or cock and is dated 1916 and on the reverse is a cannon with a 75 on the barrel. The second depicts a doeboy piercing the German Eagle with a flag staff and on the reverse the American Eagle. This one also has a French tax stamp on the bottom of it (couldn't get a good pic of the stamp).

[Owd Wullie]

The "French 75" was a real step forward in artillery.
Cutting edge in it's day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_de_7 ... %A8le_1897

And there's that Bleriot again. LOL

[ea42]

What an incredible thread! Thank's for starting it up Dimitri

Eric

[gringo]

http://www.google.com/images?q=Bleriot& ... CDYQsAQwAw

third column, bottom... clearly the design of the airframe on dies and lighter, is not a bleriot.

the airship on the trench art is not a zeppelin, but a blimp. need an airframe to be a zeppelin.

[Miller Bro's]

TJ,

Those are real nice lighters

Don`t they call them "Trench Art" lighters??

I have a round one like that somewhere from WW I that is German and has "Got Mit Uns" on the front side.

Thanks for showing them

Eric,

Glad you like the thread!

[tjmurphy]

Hey Dimitri - Yep, they call them "Trench Art" but I really don't think that that is a good description. Trench art is something usually done free-hand in the trenches or fox-holes, where you might cut an artillery shell down and make an ash-tray, and then decorate it to suit you. My step-father made a silver ring from a silver dollar. Continually tapped around the edge of the coin with a spoon until it balloned out, then removed the center section. That's trench art. These are definately manufactured. I had one of the "Gott Mit Uns" (God with us) but sold it a while ago. There were also Gott Mit Uns belt buckles and match safes. I'm currently selling out my lighter collection to support my knife addiction.

[Miller Bro's]

I'm currently selling out my lighter collection to support my knife addiction.

Somehow, I think your gonna like knives much better

[churchill25]

Really interesting to see...
It would be interesting to see the dies in action.

[Miller Bro's]

It would be interesting to see the dies in action.

Yes it would! The only problem is you have to have two of these a positive and negative. If you look at the ones I posted you will notice some the design is raised above the steel block and some are recessed below the block. You need the two of them to stamp out a sheet, unfortunately for me I only have one or the other

I have a 40 ton press that could press these out like nothing. They would be interesting to view pressed out on a piece of brass or nickle silver stock, even copper would work