All About Pocket Knives

Here's some from my personal favorite hardware firm. HSB

Really nice stuff there Fonzie.

Thanks Beecher and thanks for looking Cat and admiring.

Great catalog there Fonzie,1500 and some pages!!

Nice contributions Cat and River.

tongueriver wrote:Here is one from a turn-of-the-century Maher & Grosh catalog.

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Those old Maher & Grosh catalogs are great and that "Dakota Devil" is one of the best ads.

Here are a couple more neat knives with interesting names from a 1905 M&G catalog.

Here's a couple from a W.W.Bingham catalog that was given to me a few weeks ago.Almost 1200 pages.Knives are Camillus;Boker;and BBB(Bingham's Best Brand;not sure who made them).
I had at first thought the catalog was pre-WWII but upon reading it came across something that was effective 1953 so that is likely the date.Still a grat old catalog in decent shape.

That's a great get.Any farmers jacks in that catalog?

wlf wrote:That's a great get.Any farmers jacks in that catalog?

Here is a fairly uncommon one for you, 1904 Crown.

Great stuff all and great thread!

I have a few old CASE catalogs as that is the only brand I collect. I have CASE catalog #68 thru #70 and #81.

CASE catalog #68 thru #70 covers 1959' thru 1974'. I also have price and inventory lists for CASE that are a valuable research resource. Will have to get some catalogs pics to post on this thread.

Sorry if this is a post foul but I have a CASE price list from January, 1941' that has something interesting in it.

Most CASE collectors widely accept that the CASE TESTED era was 1920' to 1940'. Some collectors such as myself disagree but no one really knows the exact year as I understand it.

Here is a 1941' price list. On the artist rendering of blade types, all are illustrated with the often thought 1920' to 1940' TESTED stamp. Based on what I can see in the price lists of the early 1940s', alot of knives that were not made beyond TESTED say "Discontinued when all stock is exhausted". It is my belief that MOST of these said knives were put together with leftover TESTED parts past 1940' as CASE was frugal and would not just toss good parts in the trash even if the "official era stamp" was past date.

If anyone needs research on an old CASE knife, I will help out if I can.

Regards, Jerry

A lot of information there Jerry,thanks for the input.

3149 Crown..$11.00 a Dozen?....I'll take 2 Dozen please

wlf wrote:A lot of information there Jerry,thanks for the input.

Thanks Lyle.

cattaraugus57 wrote:3149 Crown..$11.00 a Dozen?....I'll take 2 Dozen please

Yes, amazing to see the old price lists. Some of the prices per dozen in the old days are mind blowing. But back then, $11 was probably a pretty penny.

I have some CASE TESTED era sales list that show how many dozen of a particular knife were sold that year that I think are pretty cool and useful too.

Here is a Canton Cutlery Co. (1879-1930) from sometime around 1917. Note the hand pasted note on the inside cover about the war tax (WWI) and the shortage of material and labor.
Some of the handles have really interesting features, take a look at the physicians knife. There are also many models that the salesperson marked as being "out".
Enjoy,

B,
I have an Aerial Cutlery "farmers jack" like the one in the CCC catalog. It is about 4 1/4" long,a honking knife.The 1st picture is what it looked like originally. It was specking and seemed to be gassing, so the 2nd is after my friend whitebuffalo rehandled in ebony( great job again Rob).Wish I could have kept original handles.

Seems both these companies were known for picture handles, verrrry interesting.

Thanks for posting this B,wonder the length of the one in your catalog?

Cool old ads... not sure I have any to add other than a few I found on the internet...

Lyle - that Aerial Farmer's is a beauty.... than again I am not sure I have ever seen you post one I don't like ... You no doubt have me interested in this style of jack - just trying to find one for my collection that fits my focus for makers in my regional area !!

There is a Schrade Cut Co on eBay now. Not the best condition. Most all these that were made in US were towards you,as they were mostly pre depression.

Maybe not as close as you want Lee.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/331731967879?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

Here are a few more pretty, old knives. This Landers, Frary & Clark advertisement is from 1922.

Lyle, surprisingly there is no indicator of the Farmer Jack size in the Canton catalog.

Thanks Swede for the catalog,even if none of these were posted.

The 1st has a better representation of "Perfected stag" ( I like that trade name).The 2nd has a better pruner blade representation,with a faint Universal etch.

I think Dimitri said the material was called "Rubberoid",if I remember correctly. I searched it and here is the thread Ray started.It is very flammable,but doesn't seem to have the gassing property of celluloid.

http://www.allaboutpocketknives.com/kni ... id#p456602

Beechtree - Thanks for posting those LF&C catalog pictures. I've been on the hunt for LF&C catalogs pictures for a while now and have a wanted ad posted here. Having these 131 different knives will assist me greatly in cataloging my own collection. An amazing find, thank you so much!

Thats a very pretty L.F.& C. Lyle.
Glad the LF&C pages will help on the hunt bestgear.
Here are a few 1923 Cattaraugus Cutlery Co. (1886-1963). This now-past year a fire destroyed the old Cattaragus factory Building Number 2 (see January 2015 "Knife Magazine" article by Brad Lockwood or this article http://www.jbfchamplin.com/?p=964).

Thanks to all for posting such interesting advertising. There is a lot of info here!
These are a few Remington's from 1925. Sorry Lyle, no Farmer jacks in this one either.
Enjoy,

That's Hillbilly Hdwe.

What city were they based in,just about has to be somewhere near me?

Just plucked this 1919 catalog from eBay.....11 pages of pocket knives! When in-hand I will post scans. Tom

No matter who one asks, who they talk to, what they read in a book or on a pocketknife website, no matter how many knives they hold and look at, I don't think anything is more informative than old catalog cuts and descriptions.

People have misconceptions about their knives or they outright lie, books are often poorly researched or not at all, but still it's someone's opinion, we on this site (myself included) often misspeak or give out incorrect information, Knives can be cleaned, altered, rebuilt and counterfeited.

But old catalogs were created at the same time as the knives they represent. They provide the name of the manufacturer and if dated, an approximate date of manufacture, the length, sometimes the weight per box of six, handle material options, oftentimes exact pattern numbers and their variations, blade configurations, shields, presence or absence of bolsters and their shapes, sometimes blade etches, type of nail pulls, swedge designs, type of blade grinds, possibly (?) bone handle jigging pattern, maybe a tang stamp or a portion thereof, and maybe more to a more discerning eye than I possess.

The only problem with old catalog cuts of individual knives is they were not created by the same people that created the knives, so errors did happen.

A photographic image in an old catalog is better than one reverse engraved onto a printing plate.

That is why I own just about every catalog reprint that has been published and why we should endeavor to preserve and publish all the rest, even if it's just here in this thread, which should be made a "sticky". There is a similar thread on BladeForums.

We should support those individuals that go to the trouble and expense to self-publish old knife catalogs. If done well, it is expensive and time-consuming. One AAPK member has done three and I have bought all of them. I would recommend that we all do that.

Catalogs are incapable of lying. They may not always be right, but they do not lie. For instance, I think one of the very early Schatt & Morgan catalogs illustrated knives with a tang stamp location where the knives were never made. They relocated after the catalog cuts were created and made the knives in a different city. I might have misspoken on that, but I think I read that somewhere.

My opinions only. Yours may disagree. No problem if it does.

Charlie Noyes

Charlie, in the old catalogs were the knives shown drawn by graphic artists or are they a "photographic image reverse engraved onto a printing plate".
I often refer to the "Schrade Catalog E" and have assumed these knife images are the work of graphic artists. If so, one should keep in mind that the purpose was to show retailers what they could order. They were not intended as reference material for future collectors. That said i'm sure the professionalism of graphic artists resulted in accurate drawings almost every time.
Too bad the old knife catalogs do not show tang stampings or the back side of the knife which would show nail nicks and blade swages (BRL spelling), useful if wondering about blade replacement.

Wholehardily agree. I love the cuts, as they have become interlinked with my hobby. Information is very appealing.

From Colonel Robert Mayes "Knife Album"©1970 for example:

Look at the selection of each knife and check out the fine print at the bottom of the page,I learned something.

If anyone knows the date of the Norvell Shapleigh catalog he used,I would like that very much.

I know some are plates Roland, I've seen them ,engraved I presumed .