All About Pocket Knives

Can anyone shed some light on the time frame during which the Dwight Devine name appeared on Ulster knives? Also if you can tell me, I'd like to know the time line for the Ulster, Schrade, Imperial progression. I'm a bit confused based on some of the things I've read.

*Dwight Divine and Son 1876-1941

*1919-1941 declines to modernize and retains Sheffield Hand methods, company suffers

*1941-1943 Camillus buys Ulster
Then the Baers Brothers join forces and run the company.

1943 they do contrct knives for the US goverment

1945-46 Kingston and Vulcan Cut Co. begin to make kitchen knives and obtain Schrade Cutlery Co, Walden NY THEN re-naming it SCDRADE WALDEN

1947 Kingston Cut Co. is disolved (Ulster and Imperial merge) to form Imperial Knife Asso. owned by someother folks and still the Baers. ::blah:: ::blah::

Thanks Chris. You guys are causing me to get a lot more interested in the history behind some of these older knives.

Phil

Chris, there are a couple of discrepancies in that list:

- Ulster was started in 1876 by Dwight Devine
- From 1900 to 1923, it was Dwight Devine and Son
- From 1923 to 1941, the name was changed to Dwight Devine and Sons
(Through all the above dates it was always known as Ulster Knife Co.

- Camillus never owned Ulster, in 1941, Albert Baer left Camillus (after 18 years) and bought the Ulster Knife Co. from the Devines. He retained a large stake in Camillus through August Kastor. Through this stake, Baer's daughters took over ownership of the company in the sixties.

- In 1943, Baer went into partnership with Imperial to form Kingston Cutlery Co.

- in 1945-46, Kingston formed the Vulcan Safety Razor Co, aquired Schrade Cutlery Co and re-named it Schrade Walden

- In 1947, Kingston was dissolved, and Ulster and Imperial merged to form the Imperial Knife Asociated Companies. This was initially run by the Baers, the Mirando family (founders of Imperial c.1916), and Dominic Fazzano, (an Imperial partner c. 1919).

_ In 1984, Albert Baer bought his partners out and re-named the company Imperial Schrade Corporation, moving all operations to the new factory in Ellenville.

I think the tang stamp progression on the Ulsters was - Ulster Knife Co, Ulster Knife, Ulster USA

Eric

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I tend to see the Dwight Devine and Sons name stamped on Scout knives. Almost all the others tend to have only the Ulster Knife Co. stamping. I say almost because I have one (a horn handled whittler) that is stamped Dwight Devine & Sons on the master blade and Ulster Knife Co. on the two secondaries. Maybe there is something about multi blades that warrants the Dwight Devine stamp.

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The Boy Scout knives are where I have encountered the Dwight Devine tang stamp. I collect Boy Scout knives and that's what prompted my question about the time frame. Trying to get one on ebay right now.

Thanks to all who have contrubuited information to this thread.

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The reason I say that the Dwight Devine stamp tends to show up on Scout knives is to suggest that you can't really associate the stamp with a particular time period. I think it was just used on some knives at various times.

By the way that stamp also shows up on a Whittler in the Ulster Collecting thread in knife lore.

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I agree with msteele, the only way you can semi nail down a time frame is if it's Dwight Devine and Son, it's pre 1923, If it's Dwight Devine and Sons, it's post 1923. If it's Ulster Knife Co only, it could be anywhere from 1876 to 1941. It's possible that you could date the earlier knives by the type of jigging they used, but I'm not familiar enough with them to know about that.

Eric

Thanks, Eric for clearing up some bad information that I knew was wrong. Meanwhile, there was no such person as Dwight Devine. His name was Dwight Divine.

Here is a most beautiful knife that I bought from Steve Pfeiffer.
Showing the two different stamps.
What a knife!
Dwight Divine. 3 1/4" closed.

That is really a stunner!

Think I've also seen plain ULSTER. Gotta dig it out. J.O'.

Thank you, Cal.

Beautiful knife Joe! I have a jack with the same stamps, different pattern and not nearly as nice. In my experience the Dwight Divine & Sons stamp is less common than the Ulster Dwight Divine stamp (most often seen on scout patterns) or of course the plain Ulster Knife Co. stamp. I wouldn’t call it rare, just less common than the others. JMO

Ken

Lovely knives, Joe and Ken.
Here another one.

Another nice one Dan!

Ken

A very good looking swell center jack, Ken.

That is a beautiful barehead jack, Dan.

Thanks for the compliments guys. You're really showing some fine looking knives.

Very nice knives Ken and Dan, that’s a really good looking Joe,very nice

Another tang stamp to throw into the mix , these two scouts with their blade combinations put them in the 1920s era .

Thanks for looking ,
Mike

Thanks Joe, Ken, and Bill.
Good scouts, Mike. I have not seen that Ulster in script inside the oval before.