All About Pocket Knives

Here's an odd 3-5/16" Robeson sleeveboard, but what would you call it, a utility or a cattle knife ?

It has rough black handles which seem to be pinned, but the pins do not show on the outside of the handles. There are rough spots near each bolster where the pins appear to be cast into the handle material.

The punch is marked ' PAT APP / 25 - 05 ' and the master is marked Robeson ( straight ) over Shuredge.

The back of the pen blade reads Robeson ( curved ) over PAT./ APP. FOR No pattern number.

I refer to them as, "box knives". That was what the first one I ever bought was called during the sales pitch. It was, however, a sales pitch spoken by a very well known cutlery dealer and one well versed in the history of knives, Cindy Taylor.

The cap-lifter blade doubles as a pry bar and nail puller, for opening wood or heavy cardboard cigar or chocolate boxes.

There is no hammer on the knife, such as is found on other box knives.

And, the punch serves no useful purpose on boxes that I'm aware of, but I still call these ,"box knives". I learned the phrase in my youth, and I've just stuck with it.

I've seen them in two, three and four blade examples. I'll post some photos after I get home this evening.

The one thing I don't see very often is bone handles. Most have had the same rubber looking handles as this one. I do have one two blade and one three blade with bone handles.

A four blade with worm grooved brown bone handles in mint condition would be a stupendous knife.

Charlie Noyes

Addendum:
Here is a knife like Sauconian's,with the same sleeveboard shape, a differently shaped three blade with bone handles, and yet another pattern two blade with bone handles. The shield on the two blade is inscribed, "SHIELDS". The common factor on these three knives is the cap-lifter, screw-driver, pry bar, nail-puller blade.

Charlie Noyes

A neat little knife to be sure.I concur that the notch in the cap lifter blade would serve as a tack puller on cigar and candy boxes of old.It is possible that the punch blade was included to serve as a piercing blade for the mouth end of a cigar.A little larger than a normal cigar punch but still viable.As for the absence of the hammer;you could always use the end of the knife for that as it doesn't take much force to drive the tacks into a cigar box;especially if the holes are already present.JMHO

These black rubber looking handles are quite soft, and they shrink over time. I suspect there are handle pins, but the handle material has been pulled over the tops of the pins as handles got smaller (shrunk ).

Thinking of someone hammering on tacks or brads with the bolsters of ends of an old knife makes my skin crawl.

I suspect the punch is stamped APR, for April, though.
Charlie Noyes

I suspect the punch is stamped APR, for April, though.
Charlie Noyes

You are correct about that Charlie. I thought I was misreading it as April due to tang wear, and changed it to APP.

Thank you both for the information.

Fran

You're welcomed, Fran.
Great little knife.
Would love to know what purpose Robeson had in mind for them.

Anybody think the little notch in the opener blades could be for stripping the insulation off electrical wires?

That would certainly put them back into the "utility" branch of knife patterns.

Charlie Noyes

I think you are on to something with the wire stripper idea Charlie.

There were several unexplained features on some of the TL-29 that I would think were various types of wire stripping tools. They vary in design, but I cannot imagine what else they might have been used for.

Look at some of the old TL-29 and I think you will see what I mean.

Dale

RobesonsRme.com wrote:Anybody think the little notch in the opener blades could be for stripping the insulation off electrical wires?

Every old knife catalog I have ever seen has identified that notch as a tack puller.

See the old catalog cut below.

orvet wrote:There were several unexplained features on some of the TL-29 that I would think were various types of wire stripping tools. They vary in design, but I cannot imagine what else they might have been used for.

Look at some of the old TL-29 and I think you will see what I mean.

Dale,

What unexplained features are you talking about? Pictures please.

M.B.,
Here some pics that show an area at the base of the screwdriver blade where there is a rounded notch.
If this were a cutting blade, I would say it is a groove for the middle finger then doing fine cutting and choking up on the blade. However, that is not how I would use a screwdriver. In order to keep a SD blade engaged in the screw head it requires pressure on the end of the tool (be it a screwdriver or a TL-29).

Here are 3 examples of TL-29s that have this feature. This is not a feature found on all TL-29, indeed, in my collection it is found on about 1/2 of the SD blades, perhaps less.

In the better examples the edge to the cutout has a crisp edge, useful in grabbing the plastic insulation on a wire and sliding it off the end of a piece of wire. I my experience it works better if one will first score the insulation with the knife blade. This would be especially on the older wires that had a fabric incorporated into the insulation.

Perhaps I use the TL-29 differently than others do, but I was issued one in the Marine Corps and used it daily for years while repairing aviation equipment.

This feature seems deliberate in the design of some TL-29s, but not all. I have never heard an explanation for this feature.


M.B. – I can’t tell from the pics, but is the tack puller notch thin enough to get under the head of a tack to pry it up?


I did mention “several unexplained features” inmy earlier post-
There is another notch at the base of some blades between the kick and the cutting edge. I think it was overblown in my memory and I think it was actually just a feature of design on some brands, but not designed as a wire stripper, though it could be used as such on some knives.

Thanks,
Dale

I just reread Charlie's earlier post where he refers to the tack puller as being used for cigar boxes.
That makes complete to me sense now.

Thanks,
Dale

Dale,

The notch on top of the screwdriver blade is for your thumb to apply pressure when using the cutting blade to strip the outer insulation on wire. You would go around to make a cut in the plastic insulation then the insulation can be removed either by hand or turning the blade over and using the top thumb notch to push it off. I have seen many an electrician use these this way. At one time, in my youth, I was an apprentice to a master electrician.

I have seen these same old time electricians grind their own notch in the cutting blade of their knife, such as what was done on the old Challenge knife you have. This notch was used for skinning wire, to remove an entire long length of wire insulation, used for scraping wire, and for pushing the insulation off the wire once it has been cut.

I have pictured below an original catalog cut that shows these notches. This is why every now and again you find a nice old pocket knife and there is a half moon ground into the cutting blade edge Most likely an electrician owned that knife and put that notch there.

Hope this clears things up about these features of old Electricians knives

Great information.

My dad was an electrician. I've seen him trap the wire between his thumb and that notch, and strip the insulation off by sliding the knife and his thumb along the wire. Depending on which knife he was using, he might or might not have made an initial cut into the insulation. He would remove about 1/4 of the circumference of the insulation. Then, he'd pull the remaining insulation off the wire and back to where he started, and then cut it off with the edge of the knife.

He was quick at this process, too.

Charlie Noyes