Schrade Cutlery Company was founded in 1904 by George Schrade, and his brothers Jacob and William Schrade. In 1946 Imperial Knife Associated Companies, (IKAC; an association of Ulster Knife Co and Imperial Knife Co) purchased controlling interest in Schrade Cut Co and changed the name to Schrade Walden Cutlery. In 1973 the name was changed to Schrade Cutlery. In 2004 Schrade closed due to bankruptcy.
This forum is dedicated to the knives that are the legacy of this company. This forum is not the place to discuss the replica knives currently being imported using the Schrade name.
What can I say but WOW!
I would not be surprised if someday you post a picture of the first knife George Schrade made...... Your collection has that kind of depth & quality!
I am in awe!
Thanks for not just taking the time to share the pictures, but to share the stories behind them also. The stories are what makes your collection so unique. You don't just collect knives (anyone can do that), but you collect the history that goes with them.
I have been rather busy and perhapes a bit remiss therefore I am attaching a double set of 10 pics each of some more Schrade Cut Co. I should be done with this case in a week or two and then hope to start on the Schrade Waldens which are also in displays difficult to access. I hope you enjoy the pics. LT
on the cutting edge is sometimes not the place to be.
please support our troops - past and present
if not a member...join the NKCA! they're on our side.
BUY MORE AMMO R.I.P. Johnnie Fain
1949 - 2009
OO2 is a candle end jack, 005 is a genuine pearl Schrade cut with a Diamond Shapleigh shield, A couple of bomb shield trappers, A christmes tree gunstock, Marine pearl trapper ( off the wall schrade collection ) Small pillbuster doctors, Cell single blade budder, congress just whatever came to hand . The gold fleck cell is also rare. In fact most of them are fairly rare at this point . If any one has one in particular i can help with any info please let me know. LT
Not all knives can tell a story most of these were acquired over the years in various ways. They do represent some difficult models to find. Sorry, I could bring out my Jim Bowie original knife that my Great Great Grandpappy won from Jim on the mississippi when he was on the way to texas. But Grandpappy being a cajun french gentleman instead of just keeping Jims knife swapped him for his, even up, after that they got drunk and cut cut each other and became blood brothers. Grandpappy kept plying his trade on the river and his blood brother went on to the Alamo with what originaly was my grandpappys, knife. You know what happened there. Grandpappy got old and used to use Jims knife to slice his bread. Now Grandpappy happened to be a 7th son of a 7th son he had been born with a veil over his face ( a light membrane which was easily removed but superstition claimed that a child born that way whould have special powers to see the future ). So on his deathbed he left orders that the knife be put away for 100 plus 25 years to be given to the oldest male relative with the same middle ( french cajon middle name as him ). He said to insure the Validity of this knife it was to be marked with the state of tennesee for Jim and Our last name Langston. Now just in case you do not believe this story I have included a pic of this knife. LT
PS Most of my family that did move out west became cattle ranchers ( This was a good business since as the story was told to me there were a lot of cattle for the takeing ) I mean a lot of opportunity. In any event they shipped cattle all over the country. Some of my relatives were the biggest bull shippers around. However from my above story I think you will agree I could have been the biggest bull shipper of all.
PPS the Bowie in the pic is a custom made by a wonderful knife maker now deceased named Benny Langston from Memphis.
PPPS Sorry I did not have any stories for the folders however this should show you it dosent mean I have no stories at all.
PPPPS If any one does have some specific questions regarding any of the folders please let me know and I will try to help.
And I thought Sunday would be just another run of the mill surfing day!!
I can't tell you how much I appreciate you putting up your knives for us to see, LT!
I do have a couple of questions if you don't mind;
number 011; does the use of butter and molasses cell span a long time period? I have a couple, and it is interesting to have clues that narrow down the time frame.
The jigged plastic like number 001 ( I think it's plastic?) and then the famous peachseed bone like 003; same question, is it possible to chart the use of these?
That's a lot for now, but I have more if you encourage me;-)
Thanks LT!
Number 1 is bone. Peach seed jigging by Schrade came about for a specific reason. G Schrade left Walden knife for several reasons one of which was that he wanted to institute more mechanical means for production. I will not go into all the aspects of this but regarding handling there were several changes he made automatic inletting and jigging technique were but two of them. This brings us to peachseed the signature Schrade style. Mechanical jigging of what was mostly being done at the time Rodgers and random hand jigging were difficult since these patterns are more random and there fore, do not lend themselves to machines. However peachseed is mechanical friendly since the pattern is uniform. This done by having a spinning jig which cuts the bone as it is passed over it. actually this was still in the beginning quite manual intensive and then later became mostly automated. Especially after the jigging styles were changed a bit upon the Ellenville move 56 when the Schrade Waldens were actually made at the Ulster plant. By the way these later bone jigging styles were only used until around 60 when Schrade stopped doing real jigged bone. However in the 70tys under Schrade versus Schrade Walden tang when bone was reintroduced and these same exact later patterns of jigging were reused. Jigged plastic was really not used until the 40tys and in fact did not start to become common until the Schrade Walden tang was adopted ie 46. By the way most of these early jigged ( actually jigged molded ) were a early plastic often referred to as a composite. If you find these early versions in good condition grab them since unlike bone or cell this early composite is impossible to recreate and as such as it breaks down these knives are uniquely impossible to restore and become more desirable due to rarity. After 60 Schrade went to jigged delrin. There is quite a bit of that around in fact if you die chances are if you have a delrin knife in your pocket and in a 100 or 200 years you get dug up probably the only thing left of you or your knife will be the delrin handles. Therefore go for cremation.
Now speaking of fire lets go back to celluloid and being made of camphor and nitrates ( quite similar to gunpowder ) not only was celluloid volitile but it also is one of the prettiest handle materials ever used. It was considered an early form of plastic. Sort of a stepping stone to plastic. Butter and molasses and cream and molasses were I believe two of the nicest. Cell was being used alot by the 20tys BM and CM I would guess came in late 20 or 30tys. Cell was used right up to at least Schrades move to Ellenville. Of course each company had there own names for the stuff Pyralyn ( spelling ??? ) marine pearl ect. After late 50tys or early 60 tys they went to a delrin version they called that K horn . This was Schrades period of delrinization ( the wave of the future. ). Early cell was more unstable than later cell. This was due to several reasons cell production procedure ( faulty final washing of the product often increase instability ). Cell later became a bit better due to better cell formulas and better production procedures. PS the two rarest patterns of cell I have found to be the gold flake and Christmas tree patterns. I hope this answers the question some what, let me know what you feel I missed .LT
As I said Schrade wanted to mechanize so it should have begun early with Shrade I cannot give an exact date but close to the beginning and certainly pre WWI. Autos often carry pat dates and substanciate this. Methods not so much but differences in patterns which are minor. The easiest way is to have a whole bunch of both side by side and look close. Perhapes when I get into the Schrade Waldens it will become more apparent since it is subtle I would say its look of difference is as much due to the variation in bone thickness, color variations, and perhapes a miniscule elongation of the jigged pit. Due to minescule changes in the jigging tools from the original Schrade Cut jigs All very subtle and usually more apparent ( if apparent at all ) with a few of each side by side. This is a real point with the conspiracy theory people in knives who see any difference as wrong. These are manufactured and are not DNA or fingerprints. Again I am not a mechanic the subtlness of manufacturing technique is not my forte. Really this is the absolute reason the loss of the Schrade collection was such a damn shame. It was all there you could walk down one line of displays and the visual would have shown you exactly what you wanted to know. It was a time line and verified what was produced from beginning to end . It is now a lost history. My feeling on this are more than well known so in order not to digress from knife lore, or to be politically incorrect, or in some way offend the commy chinese, Kevin Pipes, or any one else I will simply say that I hope to post more examples which may help . LT
Curse the greedy b*st*rds who buried the history. It's ironic that the NKCA museum is hosted by the same people who raped and looted the Schrade collection. They probably have designs on that collection too, never mind all the duplicate donations etc. Foxes in the chicken coop!!
Perhapes you are right, quite tongue in cheek, all altruistic, unfortunately they lied when they said they would keep it all instead of selling most of it. That lie allowed them to acquire it . You aee that is the point. Do you think having the National museum on the property is increasing traffic to the store and making them more money do you think that one of the reasons the property was leased for free was not in part to bring in people to spend money on Rough riders and taylor made Schrades. probably not . I forgot they did it because they and there commy dirtbag buddies who make there knives for them and who were partners in Schrades demise were really doing the right thing. In any event you have a point perhapes they can answer your question better than I. The word is BASTARDS don't be shy to use complete words speech is still free. Although I guess it would be more correct instead to use the B word or some other bullshit non offensive anacronism ( apparently that makes it more acceptable ). By the way ironic is not the correct word conspired is . However you are entitled to your opinion thankyou for voicing it. I respect it and defend your right to it. I hope my doing the same thing although perhapes without being as subtle is also allowed.
LT,
Those are amazing!
I would like to know more about the second picture in the first set of pictures, MVC-002S.JPG
What is that pattern called. It is very unusual. I have not seen one like it in real life nor in any recent production I have seen.
Please tell us about that knife.
The 002 pic is a candle end or tear drop jack. Sometimes referred to as a serpentine jack it was a common pattern then but seems to be difficult to find anymore. LT
Thanks! It is too bad that no one makes those old patterns today. I like that Canal Street has done some old ones. What I don't like is that they usually use stainless steel. It just doesn't seem right to me somehow. Kind of like a model A Ford with a polyurethane paint job and lots of chrome. It just doesn't look & feel right.
The more I see some of the old Jack knives, the better I like them. Thanks for sharing,
Dale
If you are interested...sometimes one of these Winchesters W-15-2857 ( by Queen...through Blue Grass ) comes up on eBay. They are sometimes listed as Candle End and sometimes as Serpentine Teardrop Jacks (as LT said)...
Bill
Attachments
Blue Grass Candle End Jack.jpg (24.77 KiB) Viewed 4252 times
When Schrade closed they were supposed to sell there in house collection at auction, I have the original flyer for this in fact some collectors showed up for this to happen at the auction however the bank decided that would take to long so instead of making millions on it they received from Smokey mountian 175 Thousand dollars a fraction of its worth I have in the past explained why this happened and the collusion involved. However one stipulation to the sale was that the collection was to be kept intact to that end several individual ( stocking horse ie bids for the entire collection ) were recinded and Smokey purchased ( unchallanged) it they also tied a deal in with Blue Ridge ( to whom they are affialiated for the wip work in progress ( United also got part of it) and similar items what in fact was million of dollars worth of product. Again I will not go into that since I have done so many times and this post is not for that reason. Upon Ok from the judge to proceed Smokey started dispatching trucks immediately to get as much stuff out as soon as possible. I was approached as a bidder before this was finalized however withdrew when they said the collection would be kept in tact something I could not guarantee. I am not as wealthy as Smokey nor do I have the backing of Communist China so had I bought it I would have had to break some of it up. However Smokey Raped it which was there right by legal purchase predicated upon there non binding verbal promise.
I was however on site when this decision was made. At that point with the trucks on the way I asked to take pictures of the part of the collection in the board room . The back room and larger portion of this collection was locked and in accessable. I had in the past attempted to get pics of the collection and was allowed to photograph them. However due to reflection and my lack of camera ability they did not come out. So I knew this second attempt would be my last. I only had a short period of time and my ability being what it is the job I did was not great. I knew if the pics were not taken then they never would be since smokey ( ie the friend of the knife collector world and plutonic benefactor to the National Knife Museum ( which should actually be called the second Case knife museum ( since that is what it is mostly about )sponsored by Roughrider , Chinese communist knives. Since they could care less about ( american knife especially northeast ) knife history or for that matter any thing else that will not make a buck). So for this posting I am for the first time showing these pics which are not great but are probably the best in the world in fact the only ones in the world. Some will be doubles most will be terrible. I doubt if differences in the jigging can be denoted however they are what they are. In any event they will never be seen together again.
Finally I do not mind Smokey selling the collection. I do not mind them selling out the american worker it is legal and it is business. I do not mind the lies and collusion that they used to ackomplish this. I do not mind the actual history being forgotten Americans are famous for this just as the orientals are known for never forgetting a promise ( Like there promise to destroy America and democracy ). I do not mind any of this in fact I expected it in fact I foretold of its happening. Camillus was just a matter of time I stayed completely out of that one after the frustration of being involved with the TRUE Schrade story. However I was told quite some time ago that it was a foregone conclusion.
No the only part of this that really burns me is that now these BASTARDS ( word adoped from previous postings ). Are being lauded as benefactors because what they have done and are doing has been so beautifully disguised and forgotten. I have lots of one of a kind history that Smokey wouldnt understand even if they saw it . This is obvious from all the misrepresentation they had on many items they sold with there certificates. I know because I spent lots of time with that collection and in some cases actually sold Schrade some of the items in it because they had not saved an example. I have been collecting for over 50 years that is why I know and that is why I had examples Schrade needed.
I do not care what happens everyone is entitled to there opinion this is my knowledge of what went on believe it or do not. If the time comes i may well dissolve my collection the State of NY seems to care as little as everyone else ( except the chinese ) in saving this history of the blood and toil of our ancestors. I may very well sell my collection perhapes I will simply dig a hole put it all in it throw in 10 gallons of gasoline and jump in after it . By the way the stuff in the picture is a fraction of what was in the back room and the Work in progress parts ect would have filled a high school gymnasium from floor to ceiling like a pack of cigarettes is packed it went for 34,000. dollars .
Good old Smoky what great people hey I could donate my stuff to them perhapes in a few years it would be on display in Bejing. You other collectors might want to consider donating to them. Here is the board room Schrade collection. LT
How about some history on those.
