All About Pocket Knives

...the Mutual Cutlery Company of Chicago? Today at a local antique shop I spied a small fishtail jack with candy stripe celluloid scales(that were rapidly deteriorating)and a broken back spring with this tang stamp.I tried looking it up in BRL's #2 and #3 but no luck.It looked like it was really well made.I may go back tomorrow and pick it up and give it a good cleaning as it is only $6. Any info would be greatly appreciated.Pics to follow.

Goins says: "MUTUAL CURLERY CO. c. 1921-1926, located at 1082 Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL and was a jobbing company. All knives were made for them. Some were picture handle knives and made in Canton, Ohio."

There is also listed a MUTUAL CUTLERY CO. Canton, Ohio, same years of operation.

Thanks TJ;I'll think I'll pick it up just to have one.

UPDATE:
Picked up the knife today, brought it home to clean ,and found something very unusual.There was the usual corrosion on the blade and back spring due to out-gassing and the scales were covered with a very sticky substance.I thought this was an unusual form of degradation as celluloid usually gets very brittle and crystallizes before breaking up into tiny pieces.
Using some mag wheel polish I proceeded to clean off this sticky substance and much to my surprise I found the scales perfectly intact with no deterioration! I examined the scales very carefully with a 10x loupe to see if they possibly were out-gassing on the back side closest to the liner and found nothing.
I am at a loss to understand why this happened. The only conclusion I can draw is that when the out-gassing commenced,whomever had the knife applied a coating of something to the scales and the deterioration ceased.Unfortunately none of the residue remains so I guess I'll never know.
Anyway here are the pictures of the knife in it's cleaned state.Now if I can figure out how to replace the broken back spring without damaging the scales I'll be all set.

The blade seems to indicate that the handles were deteriorating but the handles sure don't. Isn't the candy stripe the one that goes off the worst? Neat knife.

Possibly, this knife was stored close to a knife that was outgassing.

Charlie

RobesonsRme.com wrote:Possibly, this knife was stored close to a knife that was outgassing.

Charlie

I hadn't considered that possibility Charlie but you could be right.I would still love to know what the substance was that was covering the handles when I found it.It was a sticky substance with the consistency of tape adhesive that has been exposed to heat and had no noticeable odor.The polish seemed to remove it readily and on examining it under the loupe the brass liners showed no evidence of being corroded.There was some evidence of corrosion on the back spring near the break and there was some brown discoloration on the bolsters which took a considerable amount of effort to remove. I tried to go easily so as to not overheat the scales which I believe is one reason that celluloid starts to out-gas.Another is letting oil get under the scales next to the liners.
It really is a shame that the back spring is broken as it doesn't look to be an easy fix.For now it will remain untouched until I can figure out how to easily do it.

Pop the handles off
Candy stripe is notorious for out gassing, and every old knife I have seen with a broken back spring and celluloid handles was from the celluloid out gassing.

I believe it is from that knife, not another

At the very least I'd isolate that knife from the others just to be on the safe side.

If it is in fact outgassing, it won't take too long before the brown bolsters are back.