Smaller and cheaper has been around a long time.

[lt632ret]

It is amazing how easy it is to forget. I remember when in comparison to a cadillac how small a ford was. Then cars continued to get smaller as a kid we hade a 57 Lincoln and a 56 T bird. I always remember the bird as tiny. I have recently been thinking of buying one. ( you cannot have enough toys before you cash in. ) I was amazed at how big it looked. That is because we have been conditioned ( brain washed ). That is why we spend 30 to 50 thousand dollars for cars made cheaper and smaller most which look like plastic boxes on wheels. Cars that get basicly the same milage we got in the 50tys although they burn the fuel more efficiently ( give me a break ) Are the Chinese or Japanese worried about clean air. The Japs buy a great percentage of our gas because the sulphur content is to high for us to use here am I mistaken or does it pollute another planet when they use it instead of us. Now believe it or not I have a knife related reason for bringing this up. As most of you know the first knife company generally accepted as Waterville 1843. Actually the one of the executives of Waterville was Lyman Bradley and he had produced knives under this tang starting around 1840 first so really this should be considered the first cutlery company in the USA (excepting blacksmiths ect who produced knives in this country prior to this. ). Waterville was in business until 1913 so even though old these are still around and can be found. Lyman Bradleys are very rare since he did not make a lot of them the few years that he was in business. These are often counterfeited I have a real one in kind of an early Jenny Lind whittler pattern in tortise. I have posted pics of it. Now in 1852 the Government raised the taxes on knives Waterville in return to pay the taxes lowered the workers salarys . Now these people were quite independent they had left Europe because they were skilled craftmen and they had a low tolerance for what they considered abuse. So these 16 original Sheffield cutlers headed off and started the The New york Knife company in Mattewan NY on the East side of the Hudson river. Mattewan was later joined with Fishkill NY and renamed Beacon since Mt Beacon had been where the signal fires were lit during the revolution to warn Newburgh West point Kingston ( the first capital of NYS later moved further north to Albany after the british torched the city). NYK was only in Mattewan for 4 years 1852-1856. In 1856 the people of Walden ( west side of the Hudson) made them an offer they could not refuse all the people in town hitched up there wagons and moved the whole company to Walden NY to an empty textile mill on the Wallkill river. They wanted the industry and jobs that bad. New York Knife was produced in Walden from then untill around 1930 when they went broke. This is a rather long story and this is just part of it. All this being said we now come to the point of this posting and that is the continual deterioration of american products. For those of you who collect old Northeastern knife tang markings it is possible you may collect all your life and never see a Mattewan marked NYK. They were only made for 4 years. If you do see one it most likely will be a show or exhibition piece they made a few of these for exhibitions to promote the then new firm some of these have survived albiet many with broken blades and handles. I have 2 Mattewans both are working knives which is even more rare, one is a small knife similar to the Bradley size and style, also in tortise. Recently however I was advised of a hawkbill which had been the favorite knife of an elderly collector who had passed away the new owner contacted me to see if I had an interest. I said yes and went out and got another mortgage on my house and bought it. This knife is over 150 years old and its condition is astounding it snaps like a trap and should last several centurys more. The marking is clear and crisp the handle is wood and has 2 wormholes it could very well have been in the civil war since it was made as much as 9 years before that conflict began. here is nothing produced today of the strength and quality of this knife . Now that being said I also have a NYK Walden ( Not a Hammer brand which was the later NYK marking ) so it is probably early 1900 I have posted pics of both just to show how even then quality suffered. The newer knife is smaller with much less strength and obviously cheapened. It must have been wonderful to have known the original craftsmen who took the kind of pride in there work that produced a product that 150 years later is still better than those being made today. Pictures do not do the differences that exist even in an original and one just a few decades later. It would seem this syndrome has taken place in many fields of production and explains at least part of what is happening today. LT

[upnorth]

What a great knife LT! And story!! You musta needed a wheelbarrow to carry that knife out to your um..T-Bird (or has that gone out the window, now that you bought that knife? )
Thanks for showing that to us.

[CCBill]

Good article, lt... Very interesting.
Check out my avatar. Do you know what it is?
...CCBill...

[lt632ret]

To small for me to tell looks like it could be some kind of an expo might even be a Mattawan. . ???? LT PS I have enough trouble reading them up close. LT

[ea42]

I can attest to the size of that knife, I got to handle it myself at a meeting we were at. I knew it had to be something special since it was bigger than any Schrade I'd ever seen. Nothing like seeing the thing laying there across the table and not being able to check it out 'till the meeting was over! You can really see the English influence in that knife, check out the similar wrap-around spring on this old Wostenholm (The Mattewan has much nicer bolsters, although I don't recall if they're integral as is the case with the Wostenholm ):