The Rogers Bone Thread

[carrmillus]

........lb, I love that whittler!!......I've got one like it, but it's not in that condition!!.....beautiful knife!!!.......that IS rogers bone!!................ ..................

[Mumbleypeg]

Lee, you raise some interesting points. On one hand, if you take the position that it's only Rogers bone if it was made by the original company referenced by BRL, then a number if knives shown here previously are not really Rogers bone. Said company having long ago discontinued (1962) the manufacture of the product precludes many of them.

However if you take the position (favored by many in other discussions, such as "what is a whittler", to name one) that it is what the maker says it is, then there's a lot more Roger bone knives. There are makers to this day advertising current production knives as having "Rogers bone".

I doubt any records exist proving who handled knives with bone purchased from the original company, and when. If anyone knows I'd like to hear about it!

Ken

[LongBlade]

Thanks Carmillus ... yeah that 72 is special

Thanks Ken!! As you said Rogers Bone was probably the favored scales at the time - probably even a selling point so as you allude to how many really had Rogers Bone... I do think though Ken and it would be hard to obtain records but I would think some business record keeping docs in storage would have the info - if and where they exist is anybody's guess.... I can be wrong... maybe folks from current or old cutlery companies may have a clue about the old day record keeping and where it went after the companies dissolved... hopefully not the trash

So to that point and as I mentioned above I went back to the old American Cutlers Journal (1922-) - actually a great resource for alot of ads from many cutleries (Empire, Miller Bros, NYK, etc etc etc) - But my point is I found a few of the different scale or cover companies for bone and stag in addition to Rodgers (CT) which had an ad - the first is The Salisbury Cutlery Handle Co (Salisbury CT - actually near Holley Lakeville but not far (maybe 45-60 minutes - not in those days) from Waterbury area (Naugatuck, Northfield, Waterville etc)... and the other from Sheffield England (sorry thought it was CT unless I didn't find it yet) Ridal & Co, LTD....

Fortunately and unfortunately - it is free on google books to download the American Cutler Journal but I can't cut and paste the ads nor print them (at least on my MAC but should try PC) so:

Here are the 3 bone companies I found to date and I am essentially copying by text on a word doc their printed ads (so each indentation is basically the next line of ad):

The Rogers Manufacturing Company ad (note: no mention of bone in name of company):
- Bone Coverings
- Plain or Stag
- Supplied to many leading Pocket Knife and Table Cutlery Compnaies
- The Rogers Bone Manufacturing Compnay
- Rockfall, CT

The Salisbury Cutlery Handle Co ad:
- Established 1884
- The Salisbury Cutlery Handle Co
- For 37 years Salisbury Handles and Scales have been used by Leading Cutlery Plants
- Office & Works
- Salisbury CONN USA

Ridal & Co, LTD ad:
- Genuine Stag Horn
- Specialty of Pocket Knife Coverings
- Universal Horn Works
- West St Sheffield, Eng.

So there are a few - not sure how many others I will find as I go through the journals (I don't have them all - whatever is on google books).....

Lee

[LongBlade]

Well as a follow-up I also found a company that specialized in wood handles for knives (in addition to 3 handle companies above)...

GF Mooney & Son, Farmington, NH
-Wood Handles
-Plain, Enameled and Shellaced
-We supply handles to some of the largest cutlery concerns in the U.S.
-Next to the blade customer satisfaction depends upon the style, comfort and durability of the handle
-You look after the blade and let us design & produce the handle

(PS - I was able to copy original ad images but not in a jpg format so trying to figure put how to post the original ads... right now they are in a WORD doc and every other extension I could try but no luck posting for attachment... any help let me know...)

Lee

[bestgear]

Lee - have you tried using a snipping tool like snag-it? It basically allows you to crop the area on the screen that you want to capture and save it as a .jpg If you send me the link of the advertisement I'll snip it and send it to you. Tom

[LongBlade]

OK folks - here are the originals (thanks Tom!):

Rogers.jpg (24.03 KiB) Viewed 5052 times

Salisbury.jpg (22.01 KiB) Viewed 5052 times

Ridal.jpg (26.39 KiB) Viewed 5052 times

Mooney.jpg (19.68 KiB) Viewed 5052 times

Hope this helps.... and it can be viewed.. (Note in edit - I can view it now so hope you all can as well )...
Lee

[tongueriver]

Lee, thank you for the informative posts; you obviously have spent significant time doing this. And thanks to all the others who have made this an excellent thread!

[LongBlade]

My pleasure TongueRiver and thanks - I really enjoy looking for the historical pieces and putting the info together to share with you guys when it fits.....

There must be some other guys that have some other Rogers bone covers to share... afterall as mentioned above by many Rogers Bone was the "desired" bone for scales and was advertised with many knife companies... so there must be a load more to see ... I'm certainly interested in whether my perception of Rogers Bone (color) is the same or different amongst the knives... I guess as alluded to above - how can you really know for sure your knife has Rogers Bone... as TongueRiver said an interesting discussion for sure!!

[btrwtr]

Great information Lee and some great examples shown. I know what I have come to accept as Rogers bone over years of collecting. Whether or not my perception is correct is a big question mark. I wouldn't dare to believe that Rogers bone color and jigging remained the same though their years of production. If you look at popular companies like Schrade, Case, and KA-BAR, to name just a few, and how the color and jigging of their bone handles varied over years of production you might expect that Rogers bone did much the same over the years.

When it specifically comes to Case knives with Rogers bone handles there is what collectors refer to as both late and early Rogers bone. The early bone is a lighter tan/brown color while the late is more of a reddish color.

Here is the link to an AAPK post that specifically deals with Case knives with Rogers bone handles. Some nice examples shown here. The jigging pattern in these bone handles remains quite uniform and distinctive but the color does vary greatly.

http://www.allaboutpocketknives.com/kni ... 66&t=48037

[LongBlade]

Thanks Wayne ... The link to the Case knives with Rogers bone is a perfect example of what I was looking for in terms of Rogers bone!!!... Thanks .. and Case is the perfect cutlery to answer these questions as they still exist and the records are there for Rogers Bone as a source... I even learned something new - red Rogers Bone ... Great informative addition to this thread! So did Case jig their own bone or did Rogers make it for them? Case would know the answer - many older dissolved companies are open to debate unless we find the records

When I first posted to this thread I guess I was on the right track - seemed impossible to me that the bone would remain unchanged in color etc for so many years unless they were cloning the source of the bone .... cool stuff and thanks again!!!

[orvet]

I found this knife at the OKCA show last weekend. I showed it to several knowledgeable people and some thought it was Rogers Bone and some did not.
Most Rogers bone I find has been carried, used and usually well pocket worn. This Wards stockman looks like it was purchased and put away somewhere where nothing could damage it.
Aside from a little spotting of the carbon steel blades (impossible to stop), it looks brand new!
No chips, no crack not even any wear to the bone!

I know Rogers had several patterns, but is this one of Rogers' jigging patterns?

Thanks,
Dale

[carrmillus]

.............that's what I would call roger's bone, dale!!............. .........................

[LongBlade]

Interesting Dale ... particularly as there seems to be no agreement among those you asked the question as to whether it was Rogers Bone... I think it is Salisbury bone ....

Dale - Great question as well as to the jigging... yes Rogers did some jigging but they also note in their ad above as I posted "plain" as an option which means some companies did their own jigging... but in looking at your example and this is my guess - looks like Rogers Bone but the jigging is different to me than the known Rogers Bone examples (i.e. - Case, Camillus 72...)... and I am the first to say I can be wrong so again this is my opinion...

Anybody have known examples of Salisbury Bone handles? Obviously they made them but who used them? Inquiring minds want to know

As I was thinking about Wayne's post above and the link to Case bone I realized we have a 26 page thread right now on just Jigged Bone Knives - so for those interested look through those pages and try to guess which are Rogers Bone - I think this link belongs here too as it possibly shows lots of examples of Rogers Bone or does it - that is the question - Link: http://www.allaboutpocketknives.com/kni ... 35&t=37487

Right now I am convinced there are not any true indications other than Wayne's thread on Case and Rogers Bone (and I do know the Camillus 72 is Rogers Bone)....

Maybe I'm nuts but I find this discussion quite interesting... and lots to still be found and revealed as to the multiple questions which have now come to the surface...

[stockman]

"and I do know the Camillus 72 is Rogers Bone" Is the 72 in bone hard to find?

Harold

[Mason]

Great information LongBlade and others, thanks.

[gsmith7158]

"and I do know the Camillus 72 is Rogers Bone" Is the 72 in bone hard to find?

Harold

Harold, I'm pretty sure Jerryd has got all of them and won't give them up.

[LongBlade]

Great question Harold - as Greg said JerryD may have them all except for the one I found ... but no doubt JerryD (or Carrmillus or Orvet - or one of the Camillus collectors) would know for sure how easy to find in bone - I wasn't looking and just got lucky on a local hunt.... If you go to the Camillus forum there is a 77 page thread on just the 72 - looks to be quite a variety of handles made for them over the years... whether bone was the predominate cover for the 72 I don't know... as the example I showed was only made in 1946 I think it was advertised with Rogers Bone but not sure about the others but no doubt others did have Rogers Bone... hopefully JerryD will be along or Carrmillus... some Camillus expert

[jerryd6818]

I'm faaaar from an expert on the subject. Maybe just another example of "In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is King". (no insult intended) Plus, I don't have any enthusiasm for the minutiae of the subject.

What I do know is Camillus used bone for the 72 handles at least into the mid 1950s (not exclusively) and maybe even into the early 1960s. The other handle material was that black synthetic which changed to "Brownstag®" in about 1956.

Note: For what it's worth, BRL in his 1987 article on the Rogers Mfg Co for Knife World stated, "Rogers Mfg. Co. last sold bone pocketknife handle material in 1962." Of course that doesn't mean Camillus didn't have some in stock for later use. This is all a lot of guess work so who can tell?

I offer for your conjecture, a long line Camillus 72 I have with bone handles. Take it for what it's worth and apply your own conclusions. (and what does this prove? Maybe either Camillus used bone after 1960 OR maybe Camillus used the long line tang stamp before 1960. Personally, I think the latter has merit.)

As far as availability, keep your eyes open because there are several that pop up each year. Not rare but certainly, to a certain degree, scarce. It's taken me several years to accumulate a half-dozen or so.

[orvet]

Interesting Dale ... particularly as there seems to be no agreement among those you asked the question as to whether it was Rogers Bone... I think it is Salisbury bone ....

Dale - Great question as well as to the jigging... yes Rogers did some jigging but they also note in their ad above as I posted "plain" as an option which means some companies did their own jigging... but in looking at your example and this is my guess - looks like Rogers Bone but the jigging is different to me than the known Rogers Bone examples (i.e. - Case, Camillus 72...)... and I am the first to say I can be wrong so again this is my opinion...

The interesting thing is the folks I asked are people's who's name most collectors would recognize and certainly most folks who frequent knife forums. However, I will not name them as they just gave their informal opinion, not a paid appraisal.

The reason I made the point that the knife appeared to have been put away and not carried is because pocket wear changes the look of jigged bone substantially as it wears away the high points in the pattern.
I can take brand new jigged bone and put it on a knife and sand it down with 400 grit sandpaper and it will look like a different jigging pattern and it will usually change the color of the bone, often several shades lighter than the original. The sanding removes the high points of the jigging pattern and if I sand enough all you will see is light indentations where the bottoms of the jigging pattern. It will appear to be a different color and jigging pattern from the original.

There is a discussion of Rogers Bone in a thread on Utica with several different examples: http://www.allaboutpocketknives.com/kni ... 74&start=0


I find it helpful to frequently refer to the article by Bernard Levine on Rogers Bone.
Jerry posted the link on the first page, but here it is again: http://www.knife-expert.com/bonehand.txt



Addendum: there are 2 Rogers Bone knives on ebay currently but the seller is asking stupid money for them.

[stockman]

I do have a nice bone one, I think it is a 1946 vintage one. It has been showed before. One of the few
bone ones I have ever seen. This picture is very poor color is a little greener and the bolster pins do
not show in hand. Unused knife.


Harold

[jerryd6818]

Harold, that's a gem of a 1st Generation 72 right there. I'm in awe.

[stockman]

Thanks Jerry. I did not want to post it as I had before. It fit well in this thread. I have owned this knife for years.

Harold

[carrmillus]

...Harold, I've got 3 bone handled ones, but none are in as good condition as yours!!...i'll trade you a RR for it!!................ ............

[jerryd6818]

I'll see your RR and raise you a Great Eastern 2014 AAPK Moose. That's a serious offer right there folks.

[tongueriver]

That is a great 72; I had one and was looking for it on my computer this morning and decided that I have sold it. In the process I found this other Camillus, made for Sears. Definitely Rogers bone.