All About Pocket Knives

Thanks for sharing those, really interesting!!!

Ray, your contributions are always a pleasure to see and read.

Thanks for the kind words gentlemen.
Here are a couple more that were obviously well cared for even though one has lost a blade and the other has a soft tang on one blade.
First is the Tobert Klaas Prussia serpentine whittler. It is in really great condition save for the fact that one of the small blades was broken off at the tang at some point in it's life.The var shield is engraved with the owner's name:L.E.Stocker. Mr. Stocker must have really liked this knife to have kept it around even after the blade broke.The unusual manicure blade is if I recall correctly a pre-1900 patent;possibly by Curley.
The second one is a fairly rare pattern known as an Orange Blossom.Not sure who coined that name or the reason behind it.This particular one is a Simmons Hardware model and looks to be in great condition. The only problem is one of the small blades has a worn tang allowing the blade to sit very proud.It is the one that isn't opened very far;that is where it now sits. The blades are full and the pearl in perfect condition. I am almost tempted to have one of our great knife mechanics on here repair it.Not an easy task and likely very expensive.

Nice, especially the orange blossom, still good looking knives. I have several that I bought just because I thought someone might trash them.

Josh, as Mel and Joe already said, thanks for bringing this thread back to life with your old beauty. Joe and Ray, great showings of beautiful old beaters. Too bad about the bad blade on the orange blossom. I have two orange blossoms and both of them have one lazy pen blade.
Dan

Thank you, Dan, I'm sorry to hear about the lazy pen blades in the Orange Blossom.
I have two as well and haven't had them for too long but had to check them. A Robeson and a Remington and they are snappy.
Thank the good Lord ......... and Robeson and Remington.

Here is another one in relic condition that I attempted to make useable today. Carrier Cutlery Co Elmira NY Wharncliffe pattern.The master blade had been unmercifully sharpened to the point it stood VERY proud when closed. The pen blade had been broken off at the tang long before I got it.
Radically re-shaped the blade and ground off the kick almost completely to get the blade back inside the knife.Ground the rest of the pen blade off flush with the liners and now I have a somewhat serviceable knife.
EDIT:Here is what it looked like before I started.

Joe - I really like that old Schrade Farmer Jack and the Holley whittler.

K7K I applaud your effort to bring that old knife back into a usable condition. Very nice photos.

Here is a relic that is not nearly as old as a some of the ones here. He handles have shrunk a bit so I guess it dates to just before Schrade started using Delrin.

Thank you, Mel.
I need to do what Knife7Knut (Ray) did to his Carrier Cutlery Co. Wharncliffe. Radically reshape the blade on that MOP Holley
and get rid of some of the kick to get the blade down in the well.

So I said to myself, "how long could it take"?

I ran a No. 2 coarse file down through the kick and the tang to get the blade to lay down. There was very little spring action
left on that blade anyway so I didn't lose much in the way of spring action. I did lose some. But it lays down the best I could get it.
The two pen blades are snappy and I've got a new packer. A Holley with big MOP. 3 3/4" closed.

First picture: before file.

Nice job Joe! And a beautiful looking knife! I used a 1x30 belt sander to rough out the blade and kick and I am still working on it with a couple of pattern files.

Thanks, Ray.
I hope yours comes out the way you want it.

This knife is the epitome of relic status for me. It's an old Union Razor Co jack that someone manually removed a broken pen blade and added a new large head steel pivot. The layers have rolled in, over the years but it's still solid has a firm half and full stop great snap in all positions. The shield is canted to line up with the worm groove. It's just a really cool knife that would fall under the relic category.

Nice one, Pile Driver.
Union Razor Co., Tidioute, Pa. 1902-1909.
Yep, they nailed that one.

Here's a Case Congress, 64052. Both masters marked case xx.
Liners and bolsters, nickel silver.

Here's an old Holley dirk. 4 3/4" closed.

A well loved Ulster Barlow. I still like to use it. Spring are a little weak but it takes a good sharp edge.

That's a nice old relic there, David.

Thank you Joe.

Stumbled over this thread and thought I have just the kind of knife to post here...
... a Wardlow Cutlery Co. / Walden NY jack. Don't know much about this one... altho I have read on this board that they were etched with "Chip Away" on their blades which was a trademark used by E.C.Simmons.

Definitely this one has seen some hard times and I usually stay away from such worn out knives but the mystery as well as someone bothering to sharpen the secondary blade right down to the nail nick really intrigued me.

Nice old knife Ken

Nice one, Ken.
The ubiquitous swell end jack. Scarcely a more useful pocket knife.

FRJ wrote:Nice one, Ken.
The ubiquitous swell end jack. Scarcely a more useful pocket knife.

Thanks Bill & Joe for commenting.
The original owners certainly made sure to get all the use they could out of these jacks... that's for sure!
... and for as many worn out or broken pocket knives as I have seen, it seems like they were always thought to be still useful to keep around rather than to be discarded & replaced with a new one. I wonder if that was a contributing factor to the demise of so many cutleries over the years?

Here's one that did not encourage repeat sales. E. Felsenheld Maker New York. 1900-1920
You might have wanted another Felsenheld, but you weren't going to buy one in the next 20 years.
The knife simply didn't need replacing.