All About Pocket Knives

SCHRADE

UNION CUTLERY into KA-BAR years info.........

QUEEN ..............

CASE XX
SHEATH KNIVES AKA FIXED BLADES

CASE XX

It has been suggested that I make this a sticky. I think it is a good idea.
I also moved it to the Q & A forum as it seems to belong here more than in the General Forum.

WOOOOOOOT
THANKS ,DALE

While Goins' is a handy reference, regarding Hammer Brand, they only mention that Imperial purchased the brand for use with their shell-type handled knives which, to me, suggests that all Imperial/Hammer Brand knives will have shell-type handled knives and that any Hammer Brand knife with solid handles/bolsters is a NYKCo made knife (Goin's Encyclopedia of Cutlery Markings ©1998, p.118., "Hammer Brand c. 1936 - present A trademark used by Imperial. Knives with this mark are of the shell-handle type."). Nothing under Goins' Imperial or New York Knife Co listings says anything different. No distinctions between the various Hammer Brand tang stamps to distinguish Imperial from NYKCo or anything else of much use so this thread is a good idea although I also think that tang stamp charts would be useful as sticky posts at the top of each specific knife company section of this forum. BTW, Price/Zalesky has the same info regarding Hammer Brand as Goins'. I might also add that, IMHO, Goins' use of the sentence "This company manufactured "Bowie" type knives, among other kinds of cutlery." may not, in reality, apply to as many knife companies as Goins' suggests by tacking that sentence on to the end of various knife company listings. Has anyone seen a Holtzapffel Bowie? Thanks for all the great tang stamp posts. - Bill

this is a great thread, thanks Jerry for all your work collecting and sharing reference material all the time
how do I book mark a post?

never mind, I found the button to bookmark it and I did, now I need to find my bookmarks
oh yeah, user control panel, then manage book marks, I needed to know this
thanks again to all, this forum is better than all the books I have, I am still learning to use it and read all the threads going back years
should have done that before buying knives but I could not wait, ha ha

WE WANT TANG STAMP CHART INFO................ CHAT ROOM IS OVER THERE >>>>>>>

some ULSTER charts/info..............


the charts with tang pics and not just writing are way better IMO...but these DO HELP.

bernynhel wrote: I might also add that, IMHO, Goins' use of the sentence "This company manufactured "Bowie" type knives, among other kinds of cutlery." may not, in reality, apply to as many knife companies as Goins' suggests by tacking that sentence on to the end of various knife company listings. Has anyone seen a Holtzapffel Bowie? Thanks for all the great tang stamp posts. - Bill

Bill,
Great point!
I have pondered on that very term and his use of it.
I think Goins is using the term "Bowie type knives" to mean fixed blade knives.
That is about the only way it really makes sense. Or else he had a different meaning for that phrase that he never bothered to share with his readers.

John Goins was very good at cataloging information about knives and knife companies, however the study of knife companies is very broad field of study with hundreds of companies (in the USA alone), tens of thousands products and millions of details to go along with them. It would be impossible for one person to know everything about each company and each product they produced in the USA in the last century, let alone in other countries and before 1900. There is just too much information for one person to know it all. I don’t know of any knife expert who even claims to know most of it.

I do believe John Goins’ “Encyclopedia of Cutlery Markings” is a great reference work and I use it nearly every day, often multiple times per day. But I also keep in mind that the scope of cutlery history has changed since that book was published 16 years ago. Apart from new companies, there has been more discovered & more history written about the old companies.

Hey Bug - thanks for the Ulster info - it seems to be rare! OH

orvet wrote:

bernynhel wrote: I might also add that, IMHO, Goins' use of the sentence "This company manufactured "Bowie" type knives, among other kinds of cutlery." may not, in reality, apply to as many knife companies as Goins' suggests by tacking that sentence on to the end of various knife company listings. Has anyone seen a Holtzapffel Bowie? Thanks for all the great tang stamp posts. - Bill

Bill,
Great point!
I have pondered on that very term and his use of it.
I think Goins is using the term "Bowie type knives" to mean fixed blade knives.
That is about the only way it really makes sense. Or else he had a different meaning for that phrase that he never bothered to share with his readers....

I hadnt thought of that - I thought that maybe they used it kind of arbitrarily on listings to break up the listings that only list the marking and the dates of use to add pages to the edition since I found several listings that cite dates of use prior to 1834 with that tag so couldnt possibly have been making "Bowie" type knives. Though by 1850 Sheffield makers were cranking out Bowie knives hot and heavy. I use Goins' multiple times daily also and use the info in my knife listings and have been accused of misrepresenting knives I sell on eBay on occasion as a result.

Old Hunter wrote:Hey Bug - thanks for the Ulster info - it seems to be rare! OH

NO PROBLEM HOPE THIS THREAD "HELPS" PEOPLE.....................


and HOPE more decide to post more CHARTS/INFO CHARTS here soon...................

as many have stated...NO BOOK is the ALL MIGHTY CORRECT IN ALL FACTS book.......
this will help people VISUALLY SEE several charts, to compare info with........,without owning every book out there..........


junebug

So, when this thread reaches dozens of pages, filled with a hodge-podge of tang stamp photos, charts, illustrations, etc., in no particular order, is someone going to arrange them into some better, more accessible and more easily navigated form?

And are we violating any copyright laws by doing this?

Just wondering.

Charlie Noyes

I think Goins' 1st edition had a Bowie reference section. I may be wrong, but I seem to recall that.

In his later editions, he moved those makers into the general listing and added that phrase to the listings for those companies.

Charlie Noyes

Three modern Ulster tang stamps (50's, 60's, 70's).

We knife collectors owe great amount of thanks to the late John Goins and his wife Charlotte.The amount of work that went into their guides had to be staggering.The last one was published in 1998 and there wasn't any Google or any other search engines to aid them.They must to have loved what they were doing.I consider Gions' Encyclopedia of Cutlery Markings to be the bible of antique knife collectors.

For general knife knowledge John & Charlotte Goins did a spectacular job of researching and cataloging knife markings, sometimes just a single instance of a tang stamp.
Very much a wide-angle view of knife information.

Bernard Levine has much more in depth information and nearly as wide a scope as the Goins. It is truly amazing the information he has amassed in his lifetime of study. I am told by a mutual friend that he knows as much about plants as he does about knives, perhaps even more.


Truly knife collecting would be very different today if not for the works of the Goins’ and Bernard Levine.

I agree 100% with Peanut's and Dale's comments about the Goins' and Levine's influence on pocket knife collecting. It got me thinking of other pioneers in the hobby. More names that come to mind are; Harold Peterson, Col. C. J. Hyde, Jim Sargent, Dewey & Lavona Ferguson, Cindy & Jim Taylor, Bruce & Debbie Voyles, and Geoffrey Tweedale to name a few.
All of these folks had a tremendous effect on me over the past 50 years.

Paul

WIRE JACK.
I asked Glen Davies who put a lot off work on this Article if I could post these.I did not put all the information as I am not computer literate and could not work out how to copy direct from web site.
http://www.GUYcard.com

I just acquired another Ulster with a different tang stamp - this one is an Ulster Old Timer 58OT from the Prince Albert tobacco tin promotional series (of three). OH

Belknap Hardware teardrop jack, don't know much about the age, but I think pre-WWII. OH