All About Pocket Knives

Camco knives were the economy line of knives from Camillus. Just because they were the economy line, does not mean they aren’t good quality. It appears to me that the place where they cut manufacturing costs was in the finish work; the blades are stamped and often they are not ground or finished on the edges. This can be seen in the example posted below (pic g). The blades and springs themselves seen to be of the same quality as the Camillus branded knives.

The Camco brand was introduced in 1948, 2 or 3 years after the end of WWII.



This is A Camco Rocket Knife, from the late 1950s or early 1960s, as I recall. I thought I had a flyer or some sort of printed material on this knife, but I cannot seem to find it now. Hopefully I will find it before long. The knife is heavier than it looks, weighing 1.7 oz.
It is similar in construction from what I can tell to the Imperial shell knives except it has a plastic rocket shaped housing around it instead of steel. In the yellow end of the housing is a whistle, only it sounds more like a siren, as it makes a whirring noise.

This would have been the cool knife to have in you were a boy in the late 1950s or early 1960s!


Pic E- This pic shows the whistle in the end of the knife. When you blow in the end, the disc inside spins around and makes a whirring/whistling sound. My dogs don’t like it!
Pic F- The whistle is enclosed inside the yellow part of the housing. If you look at this pic you can see the knife itself ends at the gap on the right side of the knife. The outer housing continues around the whistle.
Pic G- Notice the backsprings are stamped, but the edges are unfinished. Note the center liner is brass.



I think there are enough Camco knives that they warrant their own thread in the Camillus forum.
If you have some Camco knives, please post them here.

Dale, there is/was a couple of these whistle knives for sale at the moment on eBay, and I was very keen to try and get one, but the sellers wouldn't ship outside of the USA....

Where do you find such cool knives !!! That's the neatest thing I've seen in awhile, and I never saw one like that as a kid.

Toejammer,

There's 2 or 3 up for sale on eBay at the moment, a little pricey, but at least 2 are brand new.

I wanna ride!!!

Hopefully you'll be adding to this thread Dale

TripleF wrote:I wanna ride!!!

Hopefully you'll be adding to this thread Dale

Camco Made a lot of cool knives!
Many were ad knives.
It would not surprise me to find out half the homes in America have a Camco ad knife in a drawer somewhere. In the 1950s through the 1970s these were very popular form of advertising.

There will be more coming.....................................................add some of your Camco knives!

Little Camco I snagged the other day, cleaned up pretty good.

I got a package in the mail from Scott (TripleF) with a nice little Camco in it.
Scott did a nice job of cleaning up. It does have a couple brown spot on the handles……..I am afraid the celluloid is starting to let go. I will keep an eye on it and eventually but some new handles on it.

Thanks Scott!

I l9ike the long nail pull on that cigar !

My only CAMCO, a model 535, marked CAMCO over USA. Strong walk & talk, half-stops both blades, handle is some sort of composite, steel liners and bolsters and caps

Dale, is that Cigar Jack the Camco version of the Camillus #23?

Nice knife that TJ, looks like the same blade configuration as on the #551 Barlow, but on a Swell End Jack chassis? I like it a lot.

Willem,
The Camco is a lot smaller than the Camillus #23 as you can see in this pic.
I should have listed the size. Sorry 'bout that.

Reckon the steel bolsters and liners puts it at WWII era?

tjmurphy wrote:Reckon the steel bolsters and liners puts it at WWII era?

Probably shortly after WWII or early 1950s.
The Camco brand was not introduced until 1948.

Tanks Dale

I have lots of old Camco knives, never really paid much attention to them

Here is one of the more interesting ones. It is a Dick Tracy & Junior detective knife. It has a whistle, magnifier & a nice clip blade. The handles will glow in the dark, and these have shrunk away from the front pins like every other one of these I have ever seen

It still has the original lanyard with the attached paper tag, obviously no kid ever carried this one.

WOW my unc had one of those I would have killed for it

Won't be mine for long but thought it was kinda cool.....

Scott, that is nice (been eying it but the budget..... ) Anyway - it looks like it might be one of those models with a split/double spring? If it is, that is a nice find.

No clue if it's a split double spring.....

but I do have it for sale on eBay right now. ends tomorrow night.

My first Camco barlow bought through AAPK.
Is the handle bakelite?

Edgewise wrote:My first Camco barlow bought through AAPK.
Is the handle bakelite?

It's probably Delrin or an earlier composite. The Camco brand was not introduced until 1948. I don't think Bakelite was used in knife handles much after the beginning of World War II. I could be wrong on that but based on my observations I think that's correct.

You might test it to see if it smells or tastes like Bakelite.
Here's a website that gives various test for Bakelite.
You can test for Bakelite without damaging the material.

When was the CAMCO line discontinued? Did it last until Camillus closed shop?

Nice one Edgewise - I like the lambsfoot configuration.

tjmurphy wrote:When was the CAMCO line discontinued? Did it last until Camillus closed shop?

TJ, I don't know that the Camco line was ever discontinued, prior to the closing of Camillus in 2007.
I will have to ask Tom Williams, but as far as I know the Camco brand was manufactured to the very end.