An Unusual Encounter with Winterbottom Handles

[deo-pa]

I've posted here in the past about how I've been able to combine my hobbies of pocket knives and philately (stamp collecting), usually by finding knife-related stamps or covers (covers are the philatelist's name for envelopes), such as the example in the first photo below. A chance encounter on eBay this morning with a cover from 1921 led me down a rabbit hole of inquiries related to Winterbottom knife handles.

The second photo below shows a cover I spotted this morning promoting Egg Harbor City, NJ. If you look closely you will see the cover touts some of the the city's main attractions including a health resort, the new fire house, the school, and... of all things, the Knife Handle Works. Surprised that such a business would be so prominent in a list of municipal attractions, I decided to dig around a bit.

Egg Harbor City is south of Philadelphia and 20 miles or so inland from Atlantic City, NJ. That nondescript building on the 1921 cover was the source of almost all the handles with Winterbottom jigging that ever graced U.S. pocket knives. Samuel Winterbottom came from a family of men who were bone cutters in Sheffield, England and his is a great immigrant's story. He came to America and settled in Philadelphia where he found work as a rag buyer for a company that made paper. He then moved to Valley Forge where he ran a mill, then to Egg Harbor City where he again worked for a paper company. He finally started his own business in 1891 making bone and tortoise shell handles for knives, manicure sets, and so on. Starting with one employee, by 1921 when his business appeared on the Egg Harbor envelope he employed about 100. The building that is on the envelope is rather hard to see, but the third photo shows a postcard of this same building and you can see how successful Mr. Winterbottom has become.

Those of you who collect and have studied Winterbottom knives probably know all about Egg Harbor and the company's history. But it was my chance encounter while searching for philatelic items that led me here. I now have a much better appreciation for those distinctive handles with linear jigging that grace old Queen (and other brands) pocket knives. God I love this hobby!

Dennis
PS - This link (https://queencutleryhistory.com/wp-cont ... Harbor.pdf) will take you to a very nice article by David Clark about Samuel Winterbottom and Queen knives, and is the source of the information in my post.

[beresman]

Really cool! Thanks for this tidbit--it just illustrates that there's so much more than looking at pretty knives (although that's pretty cool, too!)

[olderdogs1]

David Clark is very knowledgeable about pocket knife history. I spent some time with him at the Pigeon Forge Show this past weekend. It is always a pleasure talking Knives and other subjects as well.

Tom

[glennbad]

That's great stuff, Dennis, thanks for sharing it with us!

[Reverand]

I had no idea, but I enjoyed learning that. The Cutlery industry has such a rich, worldwide history!

[edge213]

It's really cool to find things like this that are related to our cutlery collections.
When added to the knives they make interesting displays.

[1967redrider]

When I see/hear "Winterbottom" I think Queen, and when I see/hear "Queen" I think Winterbottom bone.

Thanks for posting this history.

[stockman]

Cool history, I enjoyed reading the post and the pictures. This was all new to me. Looked like they all road their bicycle to work, that wouldn't today.

Harold

[Quick Steel]

Great information. The one type of jigging I enjoy using is Winterbottom. Thanks for the input.