All About Pocket Knives

Johnnie,
According to "The Official 1982 Price Guide to Collector Knives" by James Parker and Bruce Voyles, knife collecting per se, really started in the 1960s. Two things he lists as driving factors are, the 1965 change in the WR Case logo. To comply with federal law Case included the country of origin on the tang stamp. The other factor was the gun control act of 1968 which placed restrictions on trading guns across state lines. Many gun traders also sold knives. Many phased out their guns and sold knives only.

In 1972 the National Knife Collectors and Dealers Association was formed. James F. Parker was the first president.

In my personal opinion James F. Parker also advance the hobby of knife collecting in a different way. In 1975 he started Parker Knives. I believe most of these he imported though some were US made. In the 1980s and early nineties I was in the cutlery business. We sold a number of his products. While I do not personally collect Parker Knives I do believe they advanced knife collecting by offering beginning collectors a wide variety of knives with different handles (bone, stag, etc.) at a price point well below that of Case.

You may want to pick up a copy of the "Official Price Guide to Collector Knives" by Parker and Voyles and read the history of knife collecting. My edition is 1982 and I know there have been several editions since then. I suspect most of them include a section on the history of pocketknife collecting.

I hope this helps,
Dale

I will guess and say the 1970's. Frank Buster started having knives made in Germany in 77(?), with collectors in mind.

BTW: I was doing some research last week or so and there one pattern that Frank had made in Japan. I never knew that!

Sorry Orvet, I did not see the previous post. That is right. A lot of guys moved from guns to knives because of changing firearms laws. I was just a kid back then and spend a lot of time in Chattanooga with my Mother & Dad. My Mother is from there and Daddy was stationed at Fort Oglethorpe across the line.

i have the parker book as well. my question was do you think case for instance, thought about collectibility in the 40s and 50s? 9ball said the hammers were'nt meant to be collected when they were made. do you think the cases, rems., wins., etc of the same era were? i know they were more expensive. most higher quality tools had less expensive versions. the less expensive knives had a wider base of sale. the knife collection boom of the 60s spurred the engines of entrepreneurs like parker to produce and procure knives for collectors. case classics are a prime example. i don't think they were produced for any other reason than collecting. not a bad thing. i wish i had the foresight to bite the bullet back then. i sometimes think too much about trivial things. sorry.

Hi Johnnie. A great question an not at all trivial. I think making things to be collected is a very recent phenomenon. 50 or 100 years ago things were made to use and used they were. Perhaps I will be corrected, as I am not talking from direct experience, but I can't imagine that any Winchester, Remington, Case etc knife made in the 1940-50s or earlier was made for the 'collector'. If that was the case (no pun), there would be 10s of 1000s of those unused knifes about and their value and interest would be much reduced. Just my opinion. s-k

Good point Johnnie!

I think that in the 40's & 50's, just after the depression & WWII, most everyone was making users and not collector knives.

I really dont think anyone made their regular production knives with the intent of being primarily a collectors knife until Case started doing it & Parker & others.

I am sure there are those who would disagree with me, BUT, I cannot even imagine some big burly cowboy pulling a pink knife knife out of his pocket to clean the cow crap out from under his fingernails. If that happened at the ranch I grew up on, he would have been laughed off the ranch!

I think the reason Case has so much success with their collector knives is that they did make good knives & still do make some users. I have some old Cases that were made to be users & they are great carbon steel.

While I love Schrade knives (because they are good users) I haven't bought a Canal Street knife yet because they are using 420 stainless steel. I do like ATS-34, AUS-8A and some of the hi-tech stainless, but IMHO 420 is not a good user steel. I would have several Canal Streets if they were made with 1095 carbon steel. I love 1095!

Well, time for me to get off the computer & go make some knives.
Dale

Johnniel
SK presents a valid point Re: the shortage of mint Knives in those brands and years and before.

The economy also played into it, In 40 we had barely broken the surface of recovery from the great depression. WWII came along and there was some increase of employment. However the raw materials for non essential items was very expensive or non-existant. I believe that helped create the shortage of knives in that time period. The bottom line was that until about 4 1/2 decades ago there was not much money available for collecting knives by the everyday person.

To surmise, I dont think the collectible market for knives started until the 60's or later. Just my opinion.
wb

collecting and can keep getting a good selection at yard sales, boy scout knives from name manufactures are fairly easy to research and it seems they are highly collectable and have been cataloged very well by BRL & others. just my 2 cents, your mileage may vary. Sorry you got hooked like this, but hey, your in a good place for support.