All About Pocket Knives

While putting together a Swiss Army knife collection I have bought a few of these Richartz brand German made Swiss Army type knives. They are pretty well put together and have some interesting scale and tool configurations. Most all of the tang stamps have the Richartz logo which looks like a whale or maybe a stylized "R". Not sure. You can see the logo on the sides of the knives too.

Here is a Mini 3 which is much like a Victorinox Classic. The scale design is called "Structure" and is made with holes where a rubber liner protrudes from each hole to provide grip. Usually they come in Stainless Steel with black rubber but I found this one in blue with white rubber. When you find one that is well used the little rubber protrusions are broken off.


This stainless steel Maxi 9 model is the largest most tool prolific model they had at the time I acquired it. It is also available in sterling silver.


This wooden scaled Maxi 5 model is an advertising knife with engraving with the company name on one side. Not really sure of the wood type but it is nice and the wood is hard.


This is a Picnic 5 Ultima model which splits into 2 parts much like a hobo knife. It has black rubber grip pads. It has advertising for Yamaha.


This is a Maxi 5 Ultima model with black rubber grips. This one too is an advertising knife with Mobil Oil logo on the back side.

The whale is a Richartz trademark. Two of the Richartz bros emigrated to England before WWII and formed Richards Sheffield. This company was a huge producer of inexpensive knives, many with shell-type handles similar to Imperial in the US. s-k

Thanks, I did not know that.