All About Pocket Knives

How about this one? Aluminum frame, curved knife with what looks like a fork on the end. Has 3 interlocking rings on the tang stamp and W.A. Russel on the blade. This looks old? What was it used for and does anyone have any idea on the maker and value?

its the new game at the olympics. do or die boomerang.

i haven't a clue.

Kinda looks like a tool of some kind... what car has 3 intertwined rings? Of course I'm an idget when it veers off from the regular ole patterns

It is a one-arm man's eating tool. It is his knife and fork. Most, or many, date towards the end on the Civil War when many limbs were amputated.

Ray

I appreciate the input on this. I also collect tokens and know that during the Civil War aluminum was more valuable than gold, but by 1900 it was inexpensive and was commonly used to make tokens with. I did think about the one arm man type knife but kind of wrote that idea off. This has big prongs on it and doesn't look like it woul be too handy. Also I did some digging on the name on this and found a person with this same name ran a cigar store / tavern in MN in the early 1900's. Thought that maybe that might be connected but don't know how? Thanks for the help.

What Ray said;a one armed man's knife. The aluminum handle probably dates it to around 1900 or slightly earlier.At that point in time;due to the difficulty of mining aluminum,it was actually more costly than gold.Here's a Press Button Knife Co automatic knife that still has the faint etch on the blade advertising A.A. Marks Co of Newark NJ;a maker of artificial limbs. Supposedly these knives were first given to Spanish American war veterans who had suffered the loss of a hand or arm.

Thank you for posting that. I think that seals the deal. Makes you realize how primitive things used to be. We see these troops returning from the middle east with lost limbs and they are fitted with prosthesis. A far cry from the old days. I can't imagine trying to eat with that day in and day out.

The originally posted knife is interesting in that it begs the question:How was a person with one arm(or hand)supposed to open it? The only way I can think of is that one would use their teeth to grasp the small open area between the tines and pull.This would seem to me to be a bit dangerous in that the tines might be levered into the lips or tongue of the person opening it.
I have seen fixed blade versions of these as well as the Press Button ones but this is the first manually operated one armed mans knife. By the way that is a great score.Hope we can find out some info about the maker.

I looked a bit more on this and see that there was an W.A. Russel Co in Detroit in 1904. They had some connection to the auto industry so surely they were manufacturers of something. I'm going to try and get more info on that. Another thing on this knife is that it doesn't have a nail pull on either side so that does say it's not a knife for conventional use.

Still looking on this and have found that the 3 interlocking rings are a symbol for the Odd Fellows fraternal group. Thinking now that maybe a lodge member made this knife and gave it to a disabled veteran member or several members may have been given a knife like this and the name on the blade may be the person's name it was given to so as to establish ownership. I did find the Civil War discharge for Wm. A. Russel of Terre Haute, IN , but my experience on this type of thing is that there are many more than one W.A. Russel' connected to the Civil War when you factor in the Spainish - Am War there must be dozens and it will be hard to pin down. Comments?

OK here are a couple of things I gleaned from research:

I don't think the knife is from the Civil War era(1861-65) because at that time aluminum was just too difficult and expensive to produce to be used as knife handles.Aluminum mass production did not commence in the USA until about 1888 when the compeny we now know as ALCOA was formed.

I also don't think the tang stamp has any relation to the IOOF or Odd Fellows simply because I have never seen anything related to them that did not include the letters F-L-T within the rings(standing for Fellowship Love,& Trust).

I do think that the name stamped into the blade is likely the person who made it and the 3 ring sign was his mark.If I had to guess I would say it was English in origin and made around 1900.Just my opinion.

Hi Bob, where in the world did you find that knife, these are new to me, Civil War, wow!!!

I bought it on ebay and only caught it because it had Russel (L) on it which I collect. Had no idea what I was bidding on. A friend told me it was a better item and to do some looking on it. Thanks for the input on this I appreciate it.