All About Pocket Knives

Lee you covered most of it there but left out the so called second cut stag which may also be a possibility.

Thanks Greg - glad you caught that one .. the secondary stag is an important one too especially given that little went to waste in those days so using the secondary stag makes good business sense ...

Simply put Jay, I’m trying to determine if the material we refer to as pressed stag is naturally occurring , if not how it got the way it is. When I bought the Wostenholm farmers jack from the UK, I was told by people whose opinions I value, it was pressed stag. I had never seen or noticed that material before and I have been researching ever since.

There are highly regarded opinions ( not me for sure) on both sides , there is no consensus.

wlf wrote:Thanks Roger.I greatly appreciate and value your input. Were the American Tree Brand knives manufactured in Germany?

Mark Zelasky has seen a lot of knives.

Hey lyle,
You are welcome, but unfortunately I can't answer your question regarding country of origin and I don't think anyone definitively can. My best guess is that they could have been made in either or both countries. I say that based on Boker taking over Valley Forge in 1899 and the pages I referenced were out of Boker's 1906 catalog. I've posted a couple of sample pages from their 1906 catalog below for reference. I noticed that most of their catalog pages were headlined Tree Brand Pocket Knives and a smaller section was headlined American Tree Brand Jack Knives. The latter section (American Tree Brand Jack Knives) was the only one that listed patent stag has a handle option. I hope this helps.

Thanks Roger

Thanks guys, found a great paper on the subject
http://sciencepress.mnhn.fr/sites/defau ... -unwin.pdf

Thanks Jay, I had forgotten about this article. I have one of her books, it is mostly pictorial. "Sheffield Industries Cutlery, Silver and Edge Tools" by Joan Unwin and Ken Hawley

Here is a pic of some naturally occurring cow horn. Very rare.

James, that is smooth bone that has been carved into that design.

That was my little attempt at humor

JAMESC41001 wrote:Here is a pic of some naturally occurring cow horn. Very rare. 63AD7AB1-AFED-498B-B67E-86B2D60A49DE.jpeg

That is one GOOD looking old hawkbill.

Quote James: "That was my little attempt at humor"
I like humor but we need to be careful to not mislead those who might be using AAPK as a reference source.
kj

JAMESC41001 wrote:Here is a pic of some naturally occurring cow horn. Very rare. 63AD7AB1-AFED-498B-B67E-86B2D60A49DE.jpeg

Naturally occurring Jay, like my Case farmers jack. Good one.

Some new info for the thread in terms of an example of a true "pressed horn" handle… Knife is a Joseph Haywood & Compy (Ca. 1845-1888) Hawkbill - (I’ll include some more history of this old maker when I post it in the Horticultural thread)… integral liners and bolsters so guessing +/- 1860… Classic teapot Tm stamp which was registered in 1860 and cool top hat kick on master.... anyway one question in this thread imho among the many is related to pressed horn as a possibility as the basis for the handle of the OP knife and perhaps more so for all other close examples posted in this thread - and this knife came to my collection in a serendipitous search …

This Hawkbill pruner has a hefty handle in terms of girth so lots of handle to see… As described the horn was pressed using multiple overlaying pieces of horn that had been shaved to a layer, heated and trimmed to fit the mold in a stack (the latter info from the old articles noted above).. in fact I also had read that sometimes a dark reddish brown dye was used on these and I “think” I am seeing some of that color in this handle… Notably if you look at the enlarged photo of the sides of handle one can see the layers of horn overlaying each other and one can see the striations demarcating layers if you look closely. The mold pattern design in this case does not come close to those of all other knives here and not sure it would – not exactly a stag look, perhaps their version HSCRATCH but no doubt different… So given this example where I am seeing a clear difference to the many above I am leaning towards the OP knife and many similar examples not being horn but either pressed bone or a type of stag that was no doubt different than the well known old sambar stag, but imho definitely not pressed horn to give a stag-like appearance – I am not seeing the layering as in this knife on the majority of the examples above and a difference in the consistency when I look closely unless I am mistaken… jmo at this point which can always change with new info ...

Nice knife Lee

I am still anxiously awaiting Charlie's results, been over a month now

Thanks Dimitri ...

Not sure what happened to Charlie - maybe he sent out samples for DNA analysis ....

Please ignore this post!!

Well, I told you I was an amateur! I cannot get the pictures to turn right side up!!
Back in a while!!

O.K., now the suspense is really building ---
kj

Finally found some time and materials to do this closer look at the "pressed" handle question!!
Thanks for your patience my friends!!!
Let me reiterate that I am an amateur at this, and all opinions and errors are strictly mine!!
First of all I gathered some materials to look at;
Thanks to Lyle for donating a relic knife with pressed handles. Thanks Bill, at GEC for the cow bone, both raw and jigged.
Here are some pictures of the starting phase, and some of the tools I used.
I got the pictures fixed, and just started over - with apologies.

So, I removed part of the sacrificial handle material from Lyle's knife and sanded the back down below the dye, then sanded the raw bone, and the back of the 3" piece of Sambar Stag all to 100 grit, to compare under the microscope, which is 40X, or 40 power.
I found some "pits" diving into the bone in various places in the raw bone, which were not visible to the naked eye.
None of these were found in the "pressed" sample, nor the Sambar sample.
The Sambar and the "pressed" samples had a slightly variegated appearance under the scope, where the bone looked more uniform, whiter and somehow denser. The bone resisted penetration of a sharp point, almost like hard stone, while both Stag and Pressed handle samples felt slightly more deformable, though still hard.
I could find no light-colored horn, but the black horn sample looked like compressed hairs magnified, and was softer to a point pressed into it.
All point-push tests were done with an oyster-shucker blade point, to spare my knives of course!!

Finally, I splintered up some pieces of each material, ( and snipped a hank of chest hair!! ), to do the burn and smell test.
The bone and antler samples, as well as the pressed material, all smelled like the dentists office when he/she is drilling your teeth!! (two ugly images in one post!! )
The Horn smelled like hair burning as did the chest hairs.
My final test will be to boil some samples, to see what becomes deformable!!

What's Cookin"?
So, I simmered 4 samples for just over one hour; raw bone, pressed sample, Stag and black horn.
The Stag and pressed samples resisted squeezing the least, the bone more, and surprisingly the black horn the most - very tough!!
I held each piece tightly for approx. 1 1/2 minutes in the inner jaw of the channel-lock type pliers.
The black horn took the least impression, and "bounced back" considerably. The Stag kept quite a deep impression, and the bone and "pressed" samples were in the middle. As they dry, the bone has lost some more depth after 30-40 minutes.

Conclusions???
Limited samples, and expertise, make it tough to conclude. I tried to be impartial. But I first thought it was Stag - now I am not so sure. The interior microscope scan says Stag.
Penetration resistance says Stag. Visible "canals" say Stag.
Maintaining a good impression of texture says bone or Stag.
Burnt odor says bone or Stag. Nothing says Horn!
I never thought Bone would get soft enough to take an impression, but it does!! Stag definitely does.
It could be that either bone or Stag is correct!!
As I scratch a tool over the crude, dried impressions, bone, and the pressed sample both react as having a hard surface again.
The Stag feels like its fibers are weakened.
One last thing to do is take the rest of the pressed sacrificial sample off the knife, sand it smooth, and look for canals - tomorrow!!

Up North, this has been an interesting journey. Thanks for all the effort.