All About Pocket Knives

Acquired a #72 a few weeks ago, coping blade is broken, the mstr. and the pen blade are well used. jerryd6818 suggested it would probably not be worth having a mechanic replace the broken blade. So I reshaped the broken blade stub to fit below the liners and am tickled to death with it as a 2 blade EDC (light work-no heavy work!). My intrest is growing and I have noticed on AAPK several pictures showing master clip blades being saber ground on both sides. My #72 has a saber grind on the mark side and a regular bevel on the other side, is this unusual? I read that a Case with this blade configuration would be fairly rare. Any thoughts on this? Thanks. Treefarmer

I have an early one with a short line tang stamp (thought by many to be 1946 to the 1950s - though I am still deciding how I would date them, but that is likely correct). It is definitely sabre ground on both sides. Out of the handful (6 or I grabbed, this was the only one with a full sabre grind.
As you can see it has Rogers Bone handles, placing it no later than about 1962 when Rogers stopped making knife handles. (I think that is the right date.)

Here is a later version with blades like yours & Delrin handles. As you can see it is sabre ground on the mark side and flat ground (or very shallow hollow ground) on the pile side.


BTW, I carry a 72 with the small clip blade broken.
It is a great EDC!

dale, i have 5 of the short-line, bone -handled #72's, all are sabre-ground on both sides of the master blade-is this unusual??..................

While I admit this is just speculation, it's speculation based on some experience and research. I have yet to see a #72 with bone handles (late '40s until probably 1958) that does not have the sabre grind on both sides of the blade. It doesn't mean just because I haven't seen it, one doesn't exist. All my #72s with the long line tang stamp and after have the pile side of the blade flat ground. Both of my short line tang stamp #72s have bone handles and sabre grind on both sides.

As for bone handles, it appears from the documentation I have available to me, that they switched from bone to synthetic handles about 1958. In the price lists 1957 and before, the handles were described as "Stagged". In the price lists 1958 and after, the handles were described as "Brownstag" which was Camillus's trade marked name for their synthetic handles. Delrin would be a good guess but production of Delrin didn't start until after Dupont's plant was completed in 1960.

For me, that period between 1950 or so and about 1965 is a black hole. I haven't seen a tang stamp attributed to that period other than a three line with no line under Camillus that is considered to be 1946-1955. I have yet to see a #72 with that tang stamp.

Maybe Carrmillus will wander by and weigh in on this since he has about twice as many of the #72s as I do.

Edit: Looks like Carrmillus showed up while I was composing and talking on the phone and eating breakfast and...

Carrmillus -- As I said above, I think that's the usual.

Dale!! You got your camera connected!!

jerryd6818 wrote:While I admit this is just speculation, it's speculation based on some experience and research. I have yet to see a #72 with bone handles (late '40s until probably 1958) that does not have the sabre grind on both sides of the blade. It doesn't mean just because I haven't seen it, one doesn't exist. All my #72s with the long line tang stamp and after have the pile side of the blade flat ground. Both of my short line tang stamp #72s have bone handles and sabre grind on both sides.

As for bone handles, it appears from the documentation I have available to me, that they switched from bone to synthetic handles about 1958. In the price lists 1957 and before, the handles were described as "Stagged". In the price lists 1958 and after, the handles were described as "Brownstag" which was Camillus's trade marked name for their synthetic handles. Delrin would be a good guess but production of Delrin didn't start until after Dupont's plant was completed in 1960.

For me, that period between 1950 or so and about 1965 is a black hole. I haven't seen a tang stamp attributed to that period other than a three line with no line under Camillus that is considered to be 1946-1955. I have yet to see a #72 with that tang stamp.

Maybe Carrmillus will wander by and weigh in on this since he has about twice as many of the #72s as I do.

Edit: Looks like Carrmillus showed up while I was composing and talking on the phone and eating breakfast and...

Carrmillus -- As I said above, I think that's the usual.

jerry, just checked all 36 of mine-they are all short line-long line or the double line. goin's says the short line was 1946-1956-long line-1960-1976-no line-1946-1956-like you, i have never seen a #72 with no line.-btw, jerry, check your email, just sent you a message.

jerryd6818 wrote:Dale!! You got your camera connected!!

Still expermenting. Thanks for the help.

I have 4 short line bone handled #72s.
2 of them have the full sabre grind, one had been so chewed on by a grinder that I can't tell;
This brings me to the forth one. It sure appears to be a flat grind on the back of the master blade.
What do you think?

No doubt in my mind that's flat grind. There's always one exception to the rule.

If y'all don't mind, one more question. What was the purpose of the 1/2 saber grind? Treefarmer

Boy, leave it up to a Jarhead to come up with a toughie like that. I don't know Phil. Probably a cost cutting move in manufacturing, don't ya think? Maybe it was a little bit quicker to grind the pile side flat yet keep the attractive sabre ground look on the mark side. That's pure guess on my part. Maybe someone else will have an idea.

I can tell you, in later years they dropped the sabre grind altogether and went to a flat grind on both sides.

jerryd6818 wrote:No doubt in my mind that's flat grind. There's always one exception to the rule.

Well…………..at that time (late 1940s & 1950s) Camillus was partially owned by Albert Baer who had just bought Schrade in 1946. You know Schrade; no rules are carved in stone. The best you can hope for is one etched in Jell-o.

jerryd6818 wrote:Boy, leave it up to a Jarhead to come up with a toughie like that. I don't know Phil. Probably a cost cutting move in manufacturing, don't ya think? Maybe it was a little bit quicker to grind the pile side flat yet keep the attractive sabre ground look on the mark side. That's pure guess on my part. Maybe someone else will have an idea.

I can tell you, in later years they dropped the sabre grind altogether and went to a flat grind on both sides.

I didn’t know if a sabre grind is more expensive to make or not, so I called LT and asked him if the sabre grind was more expensive to make than the flat grind. He said. “Not really.” But he could not think of a reason why the blade would be Sabre ground on the mark side and flat ground on the pile side.


The only thing I can come up with is to thin the blade a bit. A sabre grind is hollow ground for a nice thin edge, but as you sharpen the blade it gets thick pretty quickly; far faster than a flat ground blade. By flat grinding the pile side it would thin out the upper part of the blade and make it a bit thinner on the upper part of the blade, giving you a thinner edge toward the top and a longer blade life.
But that is the best I can come up with.

The only thing I can come up with is to thin the blade a bit. A sabre grind is hollow ground for a nice thin edge, but as you sharpen the blade it gets thick pretty quickly; far faster than a flat ground blade. By flat grinding the pile side it would thin out the upper part of the blade and make it a bit thinner on the upper part of the blade, giving you a thinner edge toward the top and a longer blade life.
But that is the best I can come up with. [/quote]
The above statement brings me to guess that

The flat ground, pile side, prehaps provided a tad more room to fit up (crink) the other opposing two blades (coping & small clip)
Required less experience by assemblers???
The double sabre ground master blade is closer to the coping blade
Again, just a wild guess

It may be that was about the time they changed the blade from a pen blade to the coping blade.

Carrmillus, please check those you have with full sabre blades and see if this is true for the ones you have.
It seems to be true for mine.

orvet wrote:It may be that was about the time they changed the blade from a pen blade to the coping blade.

Carrmillus, please check those you have with full sabre blades and see if this is true for the ones you have.
It seems to be true for mine.

dale, guess i mispoke earlier- one of the five is like yours, someone has butchered it up with a grinder so bad, it's hard to tell about the pile side of the master, but i think i can see with a magnifier the remains of a line. this knife has the clip master, coping and small clip-the other 4 have the clip master,long pen(at same end) and coping blade, so this one that is butchered up could be different,but it does have the short-line marking.-hope this helps!!!......

By golly Dale, you could be right. So far I haven't seen one with the full saber grind and a clip secondary.

Does anyone have one with Delrin handles, saber ground blade (both sides) and a pen secondary? I've never seen one like that.
OR
Does anyone have one with bone handles, half saber grind and a clip secondary? I've never seen one of these.

So far all I've seen have been bone, full saber grind and pen secondary OR Delrin, half saber grind and clip secondary. The only constant seems to be the coping blade.

Come on, some one come up with something different to show and throw a monkey wrench into my theory.

AND

As far as the short line tang stamp which convention has being used from 1946 to 1950, I think they used it longer, maybe as long as up until about 1958 or 1960.

orvet wrote:It may be that was about the time they changed the blade from a pen blade to the coping blade.

Carrmillus, please check those you have with full sabre blades and see if this is true for the ones you have.
It seems to be true for mine.

This tread interests me as the #72 is one of my favorite patterns

The beginning information of the 1946 Camillus catalog indicates that the #72 has been changed
The secondary spear blade is replaced by a small secondary clip blade
However the picture in the catalog shows the old blade arrangement, a later catalog (1948) shows the master clip, w/ secondary
coping and clip blades

The beginning of the catalog also indicates some patterns will not be produced in bone handles, replaced with plastic material

And just to toss in another thing
I Have a Camillus long line( 1960- 1976) BSA knife, identical #72 patttern, saber ground both sides, special order for the Boy Scouts ?
A similar Imperial made BSA knife is also saber ground both sides but it's date stamp indicates 1946 -1956

marcellusW wrote:

orvet wrote:It may be that was about the time they changed the blade from a pen blade to the coping blade.

Carrmillus, please check those you have with full sabre blades and see if this is true for the ones you have.
It seems to be true for mine.

This tread interests me as the #72 is one of my favorite patterns

The beginning information of the 1946 Camillus catalog indicates that the #72 has been changed
The secondary spear blade is replaced by a small secondary clip blade
However the picture in the catalog shows the old blade arrangement, a later catalog (1948) shows the master clip, w/ secondary
coping and clip blades

The beginning of the catalog also indicates some patterns will not be produced in bone handles, replaced with plastic material

And just to toss in another thing
I Have a Camillus long line( 1960- 1976) BSA knife, identical #72 patttern, saber ground both sides, special order for the Boy Scouts ?
A similar Imperial made BSA knife is also saber ground both sides but it's date stamp indicates 1946 -1956

my older bsa whittler(ivory colored delrin-slanted "camillus",long line, is sabre ground on mark side-flat ground on pile side-i have a newer one-double line (above and below "camillus")-it is flat ground on both sides w/no swedge

It seems from my examples that the earlier pattern was the full sabre ground clip point master blade, with a pen blade on the same end and a coping blade at the opposite end. It appears to me that when they switched the coping blade to same end as the master blade and used a small clip blade on the opposite end where the coping blade had been; it was at this point that they switched to the half sabre grind on the master blade.

I noticed in my four good examples of the half sabre blades that the tip of the master blade sits further to the front (mark side) of the knife when it is closed, than it sets in the full sabre ground version. See the pic below the next paragraph.

I see the small clip is about ¼ inch longer than the coping blade that had been on the opposite end. This means there is less room in the middle of the knife for the blades to close without rubbing. See pic below. Based on these observations I think they started the half sabre grind when they switched the coping blade to the same end as the master blade and added the small clip blade. I think the extra room provided by the flat grind on the back of the master blade was necessary to allow the longer short clip blade to close without rubbing the coping blade.

My Boyscout Whittler #C1047 - half sabre grind

Full sabre grind on both sides of the master, pen secondary, coping blade on the bottom, short line stamp.


Sweet grind on the master


Shiny blades


1946 Catalog


1948 Catalog

marcellusW wrote: A similar Imperial made BSA knife is also saber ground both sides but it's date stamp indicates 1946 -1956

Which opens another whole can of worms since the Imperial is a Schrade/Ulster brand and you would have to compare it to the Schrade 836 and/or the Ulster 63.

Jeez! This hobby drives me nuts.



Hal -- and bone handles. What a beautiful example. I envy therefore I am.

jerryd6818 wrote:

marcellusW wrote: A similar Imperial made BSA knife is also saber ground both sides but it's date stamp indicates 1946 -1956

Which opens another whole can of worms since the Imperial is a Schrade/Ulster brand and you would have to compare it to the Schrade 836 and/or the Ulster 63.

Jeez! This hobby drives me nuts.

Hal -- and bone handles. What a beautiful example. I envy therefore I am.

Thanks Jerry!

The Schrade Walden 863 and the Ulster 63 are the same knife, and the frame is the same one as the Camillus 72. Add to that Imperial Schrade made knives (and in some cases sourced parts and blades) for Camillus, and Camillus made knives (and in some cases sourced parts and blades) for Imperial Schrade. You can also find this knife pattern with Craftsman markings. Albert Baer was a the Schrade and Ulster owner, and had been associated with Camillus since the 1930's. Lot's of inbreeding in the Upstate New York knife business.

I thought this list of my #72s & #72 clones might be of interest. I'll add pictures sometime when I have more energy for it.



Sword Brand (Camillus) Whittler – WWII ’41-’46 (The Alpha. The first of the #72s, a true split spring whittler.) Black synthetic handles. #72 frame & blade profiles. Flat ground main blade both sides, pen & coping secondary blades

(2) Camillus #72 – ’46-’50 (or ’60) Bone handles, saber ground main blade both mark & pile sides, w/pen & coping blade.

Camillus #72 – ’60 to ’76 Black synthetic handles, main blade saber ground on mark side, flat ground on pile side, w/small clip & coping secondary blades

Camillus #80 (72) - ’60 to ’76 – “Deluxe Carpenter’s & Whittler’s Knife". Black synthetic handles, milled liners, nickel silver bolsters, liners & pins. Main blade saber ground on mark side, flat ground on pile side, w/small clip & coping secondary blades.

Camillus #72 – 197x to 198x Boy Scout – Brown Delrin handles. main blade saber ground on mark side, flat ground on pile side, w/small clip & coping secondary blades

Camillus #72 – 1989 to closing – Brown Delrin handles. Main blade flat ground on both sides, w/small clip & coping secondary blades

Camillus 22LR6 (72) Yello-Jaket 1997 – Smooth Yellow Delrin handles. Main blade etched “Yello-Jaket” and flat ground on both sides, w/small clip & coping secondary blades

Camillus #72 Yello-Jaket SFO for Coca-Cola Chattanooga TN - Bolster marked 1992 - Serialized – Main blade etched “Chattanooga Coca-Cola” & flat ground on both sides, w/small clip & coping secondary blades. Small clip secondary etched “Worlds First Coca-Cola Bottler”

Camillus #72 100th Anniversary (or so I’m told but I don’t think so. The official 100th Anniversary stockmans, 1876-1976, I’ve seen on eBay have the 197x-198x tang stamp. This knife has the 1989 to Closing tang stamp) – Black Delrin handles. Flat ground main blade both sides with a ducks over water scene etched deeply into blade. Small clip & coping secondary blades.

Camillus #5 (72) - ’99-’03 (The Omega. The last of the #72s) Wood Handles, brass bolsters, brass pins, flat ground main blade both sides, w/small clip & coping secondary blades
__________________________________________________________________________________
The following are not Camillus brand but have the #72 frame, closed length of 3-5/8", blade profiles and blade layout

Imperial Boy Scout ’46-’56 – Handles are black synthetic with a sort of gold clear Scout emblem embedded on the Mark side where the shield goes. Main blade is saber ground on both sides. Secondary blades are small clip and coping blades.

Made In USA (Sears Roebuck contract knife 1924-1965? Camillus?) – Black synthetic handles appear to be mounted in the Camillus way. Main blade is saber ground on both sides. Secondary blades are pen & coping blades. This one is odd because it has the quarter moon nail nick instead of the long match strike pull of all the Camillus I've seen or even the plain long pull like the Schrade/Ulsters. Out of my small collection, only this one and the WWII true whittler have that nail nick.

Craftsman 9494 (Ulster #63) – “Craftsman” stamped football shield. Very dark brown Delrin handles. Main blade is saber ground on mark side & flat ground on pile side. Secondary blades are small clip & coping blades.

Ulster #63 – Plain football shield. Dark brown Delrin handles. Main blade saber ground mark side, flat ground pile side. Small clip and coping secondary blades.

Ulster #63 – Football “Ulster” stamped shield. Funky orangeish synthetic handles. Main blade saber ground mark side, flat ground pile side. Small clip and coping secondary blades.

Powr-Kraft 84-11 (Camillus #72 contract knife made for Montgomery Wards) – Brown Delrin handles. Main Blade saber ground on mark side, flat ground on pile side. Small clip and coping secondary blades.

Powr-Kraft 84-?? (Camillus #80 Deluxe Carpenter’s & Whittler’s contract knife made for Montgomery Wards) – Brown Delrin handles. Milled liners, nickel silver bolsters, liners & pins. Main blade saber ground on mark side, flat ground on pile side. Secondary blades are small clip & coping.

Remington R-14 (Camillus #72) – Brown worm grove synthetic handles. Round Remington shield. Main blade flat ground on both sides. Secondary blades are small clip & coping.

(2) Schrade 863 – “Schrade” stamped football shield. Dark brown synthetic (Delrin?) handles. Main blade saber ground on mark side, flat ground on pile side. Secondary blades are small clip & coping.

jerry, do you have the box and certificate for the 100th. anniv. whittler??-there is only a mention of "100 years" on the certificate, no date on it or the box-knife has the "double-line" tang stamp, which is supposedly later than 1976. i also have an identical knife that has a mountian scene blade etch with the words "ole smoky"-came in a two-piece box, stamped "72B".some of this stuff is a real mystery. also have what i think is a prototype "yello-jaket", with a really neat shield and blade etch. wish i wasn't such an electronics dummy, and could send photos-i can make some pix and send them by mail, if you're interested.

carrmillus wrote:jerry, do you have the box and certificate for the 100th. anniv. whittler??-there is only a mention of "100 years" on the certificate,

No. Just the knife. Can you type exactly what's on the COA into a post or is it too long?