All About Pocket Knives

Very good information, I have a couple of these and never thought that much about them. Interesting history for sure

I found this old Queen at a gunshow yesterday.

Knifegirl,

I'm livin in the wrong area You folks sure can find some nice cutlery up there, used to live in northeastern PA at one time, however, knives were not an interest then...... Can we go back in time yet

Nice combination between that bone/shield on that Q

BH

I'm in the same boat your are BH. All we have around here are the Chiney-man knives and those that the owners are REALLY, REALLY proud of, if you know what I mean. Seems Eastern PA is the place to shop!!

tjmurphy wrote:I'm in the same boat your are BH. All we have around here are the Chiney-man knives and those that the owners are REALLY, REALLY proud of, if you know what I mean. Seems Eastern PA is the place to shop!!

I hear ya TJ,

Too many flea markets down here and mostly fleas..... Hard to find an antique shop that doesn't price the world out of the market. Need to try my hand at Estate sales

I actually live in Western PA & I snagged this knife in Eastern Ohio. It is amazing to think of all the knife companies that were within 150 miles of my hometown. Case, Cattaraugus, Schatt & Morgan, Queen, the various Tidioute makers, the Canton Ohio makers.... and now, Great Eastern and the list goes on. It really is a nice place to be.

Thanks for the nice comments. Bret & I were l looking at that shield on this Queen & joking that it kinda looks like an old fashioned swimsuit (except the top would be rolled down a bit.) LOL

nifbuf wrote:I contributed to the Levine Knife World article posted below. Hope you can read it. These knives were made in PA but sold by Shiman of New York. What I found very interesting was that Queen was using stainless steel in the early 1920’s, dropped in the 1930’s and started using it again in the 1940’s.

Great article - thank you for sharing! That is a lot of information in one article! Very interesting to me … all aspects ...

Also really enjoyed the "illuminating" description of a young journalist - all in fun, of course … one can rather easily understand Mr. Shaw's disenchantment with the journalist industry - specifically the "Critic's Corner" - during his time ….

Great stuff.

~ Edge

This C. Platts & Sons is a plain Jane but it is my only Eldred, PA knife.

Here are some older Queen knives. The first two are Rogers Bone & the hunter is Winterbottom bone. I hope to see some more!

The matchstrike on that Queen hunter is SWEET!!


IM

Thanks! I am looking at those old Queen's with a lot more interest lately.

Those two Jacks are FINE!

Thanks, JPD

Hey KG, here's one like yours but without the tang stamp. It was identified as a Queen #10. The Queen information in "Articles & Research says this:

"Overall the 1950’s and 1960’s were not good decades for traditional American cutlery as inexpensive Asian and European cutlery flooded the market while at the same time this country became less rural and more industrialized with less need for pocketknives for day-to-day cutting chores. Not only did Queen begin using Delrin Winterbottom and other less expensive synthetic handle materials, they also stopped tang stamping their knives around 1960 to further reduce production costs. Queen would resume tang stamping in 1972. From 1922 to 1955 Queen used approximately twenty different tang stamps."

I do however find it hard to believe that this knife is as new as the article would claim, 1960-1972

Does this big girl qualify?

BRL figures she was made in Solingen or Sheffield then retailed in PA... hence the "PHILADa" tang stamp






OMG I'm not a lurker anymore!

I was watching that thread on the other forum! I am glad you are out of the shadows here. That sure looks like an oldie... I wonder if PAKnives might have any information on that knife?

tjmurphy wrote:Hey KG, here's one like yours but without the tang stamp. It was identified as a Queen #10.

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MVC-035F.JPG

The Queen information in "Articles & Research says this:

"Overall the 1950’s and 1960’s were not good decades for traditional American cutlery as inexpensive Asian and European cutlery flooded the market while at the same time this country became less rural and more industrialized with less need for pocketknives for day-to-day cutting chores. Not only did Queen begin using Delrin Winterbottom and other less expensive synthetic handle materials, they also stopped tang stamping their knives around 1960 to further reduce production costs. Queen would resume tang stamping in 1972. From 1922 to 1955 Queen used approximately twenty different tang stamps."

I do however find it hard to believe that this knife is as new as the article would claim, 1960-1972

I know there are some real Queen experts here. I have one just like yours without a stamp, but the etch is gone also.

I agree that the knife is earlier than the 1950’s for these reason: It is carbon steel, Rogers bone was used even after WWII for some time, Queen got the big Q trademark in 1946, Changed the name from Queen City to Queen Cutlery. This knife has all of that. If it were in the 1950’s it would have SS blades and NS bolsters.
Here is the best part and I think makes the knife special and somewhat rare in good condition. I was discussing the blade “etch” with Bill Howard when he was at Queen several years ago. He pointed out that the blade was not etched but sandblasted. If you look closely at the script you can see parts of the script that went un- etched or blasted – a sign that the pattern was cut out from a sheet of some rubber material that had to link the letters together. Queen owners were know for their experimentation and invention.
I think this technique was used in the mid 1940’s for the reasons above.
Now for some more: The small pen has the script “Queen” on the blade, probably the same time period.
The #53 fruit knife is SS and uses ” Queen Steel” in script and has also the blasting technique, I am think Queen started using the name “Queen Steel” when customers thought that SS was of lesser quality that carbon. People then thought SS was fine – however it was still the same SS by a different name.
Unfortunately these stamps never made on the Queen tang stamp sheet. Maybe next go around.

David, thank you very much. That is absolutely the bests information I've seen on the #10 and the knife I have is exactly as you described. You can barely make out the etch (sand blast) on my knife, but it is there.

Tstaut and knifegirl,

I have looked at this knife before and my only comment is that I am not convinced that it is PHILADELPHIA at all. I think it is of German MFG. It doesn't look American, but it could have been manufactured for an American market. But the spelling is close, but not close enough to convince me that it once said Philadelphia. If indeed the first letter was a P, it is missing completely so that makes it tough. But given its location it seems that the H is the actual first letter. The next problem is the last letter is an A rather than E. READING the knife tells me that it is not a PA Knife. Just my opinion, but gosh I have looked at a lot of knives. Do others agree or disagree?

I had those same suspicions. It looks european to me. I think if there had been a "P" there, you could see part of the bottom of the letter.

If you Google the "PHILAa" you find that it is an early (19th century) abbreviation for Philadelphia. Knife is probably European made for U.S. market.

Exellent work TJ, I also did the same and found that Disston, Philadelphia based saw maker and distributor of knives usded the PHILADa name. I also googled HILADa and found it is spanish in origin. I would feel more comfortable if this knife had the P clearly at the beginning, but that doesn't mean it did not at one time. The small letter A has me baffled too? Not sure why that is done that way.

The Spanish thing really doesn't match that well and the style of the knife doesn't indicate it is of Spanish origin to me. It very well may be a Disston distribution from the late 19th century.

That's the greatest part about old knives. Discovering these types of things.

The spanish origin does make a little bit of sense. There is still a thriving knife manufacturing industry in Spain that will churn out whatever they are asked to (mostly low end stuff but it used to be better). I have seen some copies of Sheffield patterns floating around there on vacation. That pattern on the scale looks European as well.

I think the lower case "a" in the abbreviation indicates that preceding letters have been dropped.

I seem to recall seeing such abbreviations in Colonial and other early American writings. Probably stems from the English, however.

I'm sure there's an English major around here somewhere that would know the answer.

Charlie Noyes