All About Pocket Knives

If I did this right there should be 3 pix attached.
I recently acquired the pictured Camillus. In the first pic, the Barlow & Son advertising knife is what I've always know as a
"fruit knife". (Barlow was a wholesale produce distributor in Utah and S. Idaho). The Camillus has a quite different blade shape.
Camillus may have realized that, because it's clearly marked as a "stainless fruit sampler" on the side (3rd pic).
2nd pic shows the tang stamp.

Does anyone care to comment or shed some light on this?
Thanks

Welcome back to AAPK. Looks like it's been a long time since you've visited.

The Barlow & Son has been called a melon tester, fruit knife and sausage knife. The melon tester name stems from back when I was a kid and before, when they would "plug" watermelons to see if they were ripe. It was common practice in my part of the country to cut a pyramid shaped plug out of the melon with your pocket knife and taste the plug.

The Camillus is commonly called a 'toothpick' pattern, sometimes 'Texas toothpick'. Add a hook removal/scaling blade and it turns into a 'fish knife' The stamp on the handle is more of an advertising stamp and I guess if you're paying to have the handle stamped you can call it anything you want.

I agree.
I think Jerry pretty well covered it!

Welcome back to AAPK!

Thanks, guys. Sorry for the delayed response - things got unexpectedly hectic here for a couple days.

jerryd, Texas Toothpick was the first thing that came to mind when I picked this up at a yard sale. It was dirty, and I never even noticed the "sampler" stamp until well after I had given the lady the dollar she was asking for it.

As general info, the Barlow & Son piece was German made for an outfit in Boston, apparently a dealer in advertising specialty items. The tang stamp reads:
GERSON CO
BOSTON 20
GERMANY