All About Pocket Knives

We ended up discussing the tradional use of the shield on a pocket knife in another thread and I learned a little something there. This shield thing mentioned in the reference book The Standard Knife Collectors Guide by Roy Ritchie & Ron Stewart; it is given a whole chapter there: "The Knife Shield's Mystical Relaltion to Value".

Now the fact is, I am under the spell of the shield; If the knife does not have it, if the manufacturer has skipped this step of adding the useless babble, I look a little suspiciously upon any pocket knife that doesn't have one. Yeah, I can understand if some company putting a real MOP handle on a knife stops short of finishing it off with a nice shield, this keeps the price down on this expensive material. Cutting the depression or whatever to stick in a shield adds to the danger of breaking the expensive handle. But when I do pick up a MOP handled knife, and see the extra, costly step the maker has taken to add a shield... oh yeah, I am convinced, however maybe mistakenly- that it is a sign of quality and class. Again... Completely unreasonable!

We've covered here in the forum another Traditional way of adding a touch of class to a pocket knife.. The polishing of one side of the blades. What are some of the other little tradional touches we look at to judge a knife's quality? Grooved, threaded and/ or pinched bolsters? Now what are those all about? Why do I pay more for those features?

Phil

Hi, that's not so easily answered Phil. Anytime the manufacturer has to take the time and extra steps to do any of the things you have mentioned, that adds quite a lot of work to many different people in the process of making the knife. There is the cost of making the jig itself, then of course the tool that actually does the job. There is so much involved that in order for me to break it down, there would be about 1 or 2 pages of all the details.

Eack step added in the process of making a knife adds cost to it, depending on weather or not you are having the die, jig or tool made in house or buy them or from a tool & die maker and then of course there's the time of the person added in that's actually doing the job, even if it's only adding anextra 5 minutes to the process. If your are doing 6500 knives a day completed and ready to ship by the end of an 8 hour shift, which BTW is what Case Knife Co. is doing right now, it adds time to the process.

As I said there are so many variables that go into just adding that one little process, that it would take quite some time to break it down. I hope this helps out a little with understanding why there is an extra cost added to every little extra detail added to a knife.

Ben

OK,

I happen to know Phil to be quite knowledgeable about margaritas, firearms, and sharp things ...so, good idea for a thread ...

I've begun to look for pivot joints that are at least partially sunken, at least if it's for a folding knife I'm going to carry. To explain, that means the run up (area that contacts the backspring when the blade is fully open) will not be so prominently exposed. Just an extra touch that makes a difference to me.

Here are 2 examples...

The first is a Queen Congress with standard pivot joints, and what are to me, prominent run ups.

The next is a Todd Davison with sunken pivot joint.

I seem to look for knives like the latter of late.

Bill

Ha.. sunken joints, another quality point that must add to the cost of a knife. Those are nice ones, Bill. And pants pockets do last longer without that extra sharp angle on the knife. 'Milled liners' also came to mind after I made my first post. I know camillus once had a machine in their plant to do that, and those are nice looking knives. What a nice- but expenisve (purchasing-building the machine as bigben tells us) touch of class.

Phil
I like my margueritas on the rocks, not made in a blender. Lots of salt on the rim.

Here is a picture of a STA-SHARP (which I believe was made for Sears...by Camillus) with a milled liner like Phil mentioned.

Bill

Great topic, Phil!

I'm sure that each additional step in the manufacture of a knife makes the end product more expensive, but I have mixed feeling about things like shields and blade etches. To my way of thinking, shields have one of four purposes:

1. In their blank form, they're a place to engrave your initials (which is something I would never do).
2. A badge to advertise the maker.
3. They're used to commemorate something.
4. They denote an organization like Ducks Unlimited or the NRA, which contracted to have the knife made for them to resell.

In my opinion, the addition of a shield does not make a knife better, on the contrary, it often looks worse than a nice clean handle no matter how well it was done. In the case of collectible knives on display, it may have more significance from the standpoint of readily identifying the knife in connection with the event or organization that it commemorates or advertises. A shield also may help to identify when a particular knife was made.

I have a lot of knives with shields and have a few of the same model without shields. In almost every case, my preference is for the knife without the shield. Some manufacturers such as Case and Schrade relied upon shields heavily. Other makers never used them at all or at least not on a certain line of knives. Most of us would be aghast to see a shield on an old Al Mar or a Gerber Paul knife.

This is a Schrade 34OT that was used by Schrade to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of Old Timer knives. This knife has the same fancy sterling silver bolsters and the same smooth bone handles, but is missing the shield and the blade etch commemorating the anniversary. It has little value compared to the embelished anniversary knife, but it's just as well made and the clean and simple appearance has more appeal to me.



I'm a great admirer of the work done by Herman Williams, but even his stuff can go too far when it comes to custom touches. He did this Schrade trapper with beautiful Stag handles, and to my way of thinking, it would have looked better without the Uncle Henry shield and the engine turning on the blades:



There are more than enough knives of all descriptions made to appeal to whatever anyone wants. Just like the women we lust for or marry, it's a matter of personal taste; except that even good knives are less expensive than cheap women.

I own a few examples of knives with the milled linings, and while they look nice, I have always thought that they looked unfinished...

Glenn

PS - didn't G. Schrade patent a shield impression cutting machine???

Some classy looking knives there, shields or not.

How about this: Pinched bolsters? I have a MOP BlueGrass Cut Winchester toothpick with pinched and grooved bolsters. Like the shields and one-side-polished blades, no right or wrong answer if you like this feature or not, but I do.

Yeah, I am sure G. Schrade did invent such a machine. Must have saved a lot of hand work.

Phil

Even a simple inexpensive knife can gain from a little customization.

Two Imperial Ireland campers rehandled with molded epoxy putty:

Top: no shield, bottom: Mexican 5 centavo coin for a shield (tilted a bit to the left).

Luis


Click to enlarge

redshanks wrote:Great topic, Phil!

To my way of thinking, shields have one of four purposes:

1. In their blank form, they're a place to engrave your initials (which is something I would never do).
2. A badge to advertise the maker.
3. They're used to commemorate something.
4. They denote an organization like Ducks Unlimited or the NRA, which contracted to have the knife made for them to resell.

In my opinion, the addition of a shield does not make a knife better, on the contrary, it often looks worse than a nice clean handle no matter how well it was done.

Hi redshanks. I think you've hit this one on the head. Long before knives were collectibles (i.e. 200+ years ago) they made special gifts and the shield had only one purpose... to personalize the knife with the recipients initials. In the current context of collecting, we would not consider doing this. Back then, it was a highly valued addition. If one has the initials of the original owner, and a little information on an antique knife, it might be possible to trace the history and provenance of a knife which adds immensely to the interest value. I do not believe the addition of advertising to a knife handle is indicative of added value. The use of a shield on the handle as advertising is a recent addition. The fact that it takes and extra step in the manufacturing process and a few cents worth of material does not make it more valuable in my opinion. The name, model etc is already stamped on the tang and or blade.

Shields do not only appear on knife handles. From the very beginning (1600s) and to this day, the style of shield utilized in combination with a letter of a particular font in a hallmark is critical for the accurate dating of any gold or sterling silver item, including the traditional blades of fruit and pen knives. The makers mark also appeared in a particular style of shield so this is not a new invention, but it was stamped directly on the blade if it was silver and on the handle if it was silver. Sorry if I have rambled. I haven't had access to the site for several days and a have consumed a few glasses of Australian Shiraz tonight. Anyway, that is my 2p worth on the topic. s-k

Bienvinedos Don Luis! I have missed seeing your posts. I'm glad you found the forum. By the way Codger has posted on a knife "hecho en Mexico" both on the MSN and the newly revived BF. You might visit and offer a comment there.

Paul