All About Pocket Knives

Not much etch left but it's still a little there. Was at the 2017 Blade Show it is the only one of these I've ever seen. So you know what happened next I had to bring it home with me.

Outkast, Very nice knife!

Good looking cousin! There goes my weakness for 4 1/4" double ended jacks kicking in!

outkast wrote:Not much etch left but it's still a little there. Was at the 2017 Blade Show it is the only one of these I've ever seen. So you know what happened next I had to bring it home with me.

Beautiful Gladiator knife!!! Just curious where the 72c Catalog Cut came from???
Kind Regards,
Mark

ratlesnake75 wrote:

outkast wrote:Not much etch left but it's still a little there. Was at the 2017 Blade Show it is the only one of these I've ever seen. So you know what happened next I had to bring it home with me.

Beautiful Gladiator knife!!! Just curious where the 72c Catalog Cut came from???
Kind Regards,
Mark

From a Sears Catalog #124 which was 1912. For anyone who doesn't know from what I've read Wilbert was a contract knife made for Sears Roebuck & Co. by Napanoch and/or Empire.

https://archive.org/stream/catalogno124 ... 6/mode/2up

I bought this serpentine stockman not for its covers but for its mechanics. The awl locks in place and to fold it into the well you have to press the main blade down. I like stuff like that. I was curious as to how it worked.
Looking in the well you can see two blocks of steel and they are accommodated by the opening in the center liner. Pressing on the main blade pushes on the block just below it and that block pushes the other block thus raising the spring and freeing up the awl.

Thats a cool mechanism Joe for popping the awl ... Unique for sure... I hate to say this buddy but it looks like those celluloid handles are offgassing - You may need to get them off - save the shield and have it re-handled - It is probably worth it just for the cool mechanism and a nice EDC ...

That's a really interesting knife Joe, thanks for sharing it I only have one Wilbert that I posted in the Wards thread last week. It's just a plain Jane compared to yours.

Super find Joe.

Thanks guys.

FRJ wrote:I bought this serpentine stockman not for its covers but for its mechanics. The awl locks in place and to fold it into the well you have to press the main blade down. I like stuff like that. I was curious as to how it worked.
Looking in the well you can see two blocks of steel and they are accommodated by the opening in the center liner. Pressing on the main blade pushes on the block just below it and that block pushes the other block thus raising the spring and freeing up the awl.

Neat knife with a clever blade locking mechanism. This type of lock was originally registered on Feb. 9, 1850 by John Lingard of Sheffield, England.
It was a good system that many German cutlers used in the late 1800s through the much of the 1900s.

Hey Neal, thanks so much for that great information on this old knife.
It sure would be nice to see this mechanism in more folding knives but it is obviously kind of labor intensive/expensive.
I wonder who made this knife.
I really appreciate knowing more about it. Thanks again.

I just recently picked up an old Wilbert knife. I have been looking for more info on Wilbert knives and wondering if there is any distinction between tang stamps and manufacture. So far I have seen some opinions, but no hard evidence. One poster thought that the Wilbert name was not used after WWII.

Does anyone have any additional info?

More pics added. The master blade looks to be reshaped, the sheepsfoot is broken at the tip and the punch has a broken tip. I couldn’t even see the tang stamps until I cleaned it up.

Rope man, im no expert but if you can take a pic of the other side of the punch we can tell if it was made by Napanoch lnife co. The bone looks like Napanoch bone to me. Nice knife.

The Ritchie and Stewart Knife Collectors Guide I have states the Wilbert name was in existence from 1908-1921. I pictured my Wilbert Moose in another thread you had posted in. I was interested in comparing your Wilbert tang stamp to mine because of the multiple companies that may have made them, and they look the same. I have an older edition of Goins that says Wilbert was Sears from 1908, maybe someone has a newer Goins to put an end date on. I was talking to a Winchester collector at a gunshow a couple of years ago, and he was of the opinion that when Winchester started making their own knives about 1919 after they bought Napanoch and another company called Eagle, there were no more Wilberts. I dont know for sure if this is correct or not. Hopefully there will be more info coming.

Wilberts were made by other companies beside Napanoch.The punch would can be telling.

New pics added. Thanks for the info!

He ran this knife in the general forum, it does not have a Nap punch.

Harold is right,that's not a Napanoch punch.

Well so much for my two cents. Love the master blade though.

Punch looks like an early ulster style to me .

This knife looks very similar to the posted knife just different blade combination

https://www.ebay.com/itm/ULSTER-KNIFE-C ... Swzttdno0F

Like I illustrated on pg. 2 Camillus also made Wilberts. Looks like a few patterns in this thread.

This is a NAPANOCH / early Winchester punch blade.

OLDE CUTLER wrote: ↑Tue Nov 26, 2019 1:45 am The Ritchie and Stewart Knife Collectors Guide I have states the Wilbert name was in existence from 1908-1921.

Just for clarification, please correct me if I'm wrong with my understanding. The Wilbert name was not used on any knives after 1921? Between 08 and 21 several companies made knives and stamped the Wilbert name on them, but there's not documentation to tell which company made which except for comparing unique differences?