All About Pocket Knives

We had fun with the Mule day stuff, and here I present more fun, more photos from Tom.

Tom, what brought these biggies from the Knife industry to Columbia Tenn all together? I take it your mother was there and took the photos.

Phil

Adrian Harris invited guests from Camillus and Colonial to attend the Mule Day Parade and Knife Show in Columbia. TN in 1980. Both companies made Colonel Coon knife parts for Tenessee Knife Works.
These photos were sent to my mother by the Colonial Knife Co. My mother is shown in the grandstand photo (she is the second person from the left). Billy Carter was the Grand Marshall of the parade.

Tom Williams

These are photos of Mule Day knives. I own the 1983. The 1985 was posted by another forum member.

The 1985 Barlow is mine. Man I love those Mule Day knives but they are very hard to find. The wife and I attended Mule Day this year and a guy at the show had a complete set for sale. I would love to have them but that is quite a few dollars worth of knives to buy in a single purchase. This years knife was a Case Canoe but I wasn't able to find one.

James

A whole set would be cool to see. This subject was brought back up by a newcomer to the forum asking about the price of the Colonial Mule Day commemorative. Just looking at that one colonial, the estimated price would not be that high.. but here is the wild card, what if a person needed only that one to complete his collection? One of those wild ass bidding wars you see on ebay where the final price is high.

I found it very interesting that Colonial made parts for the Col Coon knives.

I gotta stay away from these Mule Day knives, I many develop an expensive addiction.

Phil

Can anyone tell me if others made these Mule Day knives? Does this event still happen?

Since 1840, it still goes on. Features knife show, knife auction, and yes, I think there still is an annual knife.

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/legacies/TN/200003531.html

I went and dug this up since my previous post.
I bought this knife to use, but never did, 8-9 years ago. I didn't and still don't, understand the etch. It seems to be out of "time" ('73 knife, '94 event), but it looks like something to do with Mules?!?!
Anyone know what it might have been for??

upnorth wrote:I went and dug this up since my previous post.
I bought this knife to use, but never did, 8-9 years ago. I didn't and still don't, understand the etch. It seems to be out of "time" ('73 knife, '94 event), but it looks like something to do with Mules?!?!
Anyone know what it might have been for??

"Coon Hunting" mules are taught to jump fences, its not like regular horse jumping, although some are taught to do that as well.
When the hunter comes to a fence he dismounts and puts his coat over the fence nd the mule sort of pounces or "jumps" flat footed over it. The 3 jumps is a class in the competition I believe.


An example of a mule jumping

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A_3eN-u ... re=related

great stuff, tod.

Great stuff, Tod! Little did I know !
I guess the event people got some NOS knives, and had them etched for the event!?!

upnorth wrote:Great stuff, Tod! Little did I know !
I guess the event people got some NOS knives, and had them etched for the event!?!

No problem, my head is full of useless facts Now you guys can teach me about knives!
By the way, most muleevents are kind of low buck affairs, engraving an old knife would fit! I have donated all kinds of stuff as prizes to local horse shows and received some strange awards as well.

I don't won't to side-track an EXCELLENT thread because I for one love stuff like this (MULE DAY), but I would like to comment on jumping mules. I'm bred, born, and raised pure KY. Although I'm 37 and younger than some on here I grew up on a lot of the "old ways." Most I'm glad for but some, I could live without. Yes we had electricity, running water, and wore shoes. I remember when a time in the late '70's and maybe early 80's that "hides" went through the roof, price wise. At that time what we referred to as coon hunters and fox hunters were guys who had 30 or 40 hounds and wouldn't kill a fox or coon for nothing. They loved the hunt. My neighbor who was like a grandpa to me would let some of his grandkids go with him fox hunting from time to time and I was cousins to one of them. I remember he drove those older LOONNGG station wagons (some woodies in the bunch) and would fill the back end of that thing up with dogs and head out. He had a mattress tied to the roof of the one he was hunting out of at the time and kept it in the barn except on hunt nights. The hunt would go like this: we would get there a little before dark and get a fire built. He'd always make sure us kids had stuff to eat. Those old dogs knew more than we did what was taking place. I'll back up here, when he would pull that car up to the pen (that housed around 50 dogs) everyone of them would sound off and jump on that pen like they were begging "PICK ME, PICK ME". Well he would drag dogs out of there and load them one by one until the back end was filled to capacity.......


OK I've done went wild with my writing which is a habit with me and have a LONG story going......if anyone wants me to continue, I will. Don't want to become a "forum pest"........GREAT THREAD HERE.......MULE DAY!!!

Well, Cope, I'm waiting for the rest of that story!!

Well if anyone disapproves BLAME CHARLIE!!!! I get carried away sometimes writing and I sure don't want to be known as a pest. It's just that due to health problems, I have a lot of time on my hands and love this site. If I get too "posty" on the forums, just drop me a note telling me to cool it and I'll take the hint.

PART 2

I'll start off by giving you an example of the size of this dog pen and the number dogs this guy had in that pen. This is not counting the countless one's he had tied for whatever reason at every available hitching post. The pen is gone now, but it was probably half the size of a football field. Kenneth, the man I'm talking about suffered a heart attack some time before he died and his grandson was left with the task of feeding his dogs. Now this part is going to sound exaggerated but its all true. Him and a few more dedicated hunter's with dogs aplenty bought dog food by the truck loads in 50# bags. There was a mill somewhere they went to and got it at a discount. His grandson that fed the dogs when he had the heart attack was my first cousin and he said he would take a bag (50# remember) into the pen, pull the tab on it and start walking, letting the dog food pour out as he went. When he got back around to the gate, there wasn't a pellet of dog food to be found anywhere. A LOT of dogs! So on a typical hunt (with the kids at least) when the dogs had been losed, the fire built, and everyone having a good time, it was time for the hunt. The hounds would strike a fox fairly quickly but very soon go out of hearing distance. Foxes can run for miles on a hunt and although it may seem cruel to some, I think the foxes actually enjoyed it as much as the dogs. At this time it was good and dark, the dogs had took the fox out of hearing, and Kenneth was ready to turn in. He would climb up on his mattress and get settled in and say when the dogs come back in hearing.....wake me up. If you don't know what I mean by "hearing"....hounds bark on the trail. When you get a bunch together they can create quite a song, if you like that kind of music. He would be snoring in a millisecond and we were free to roam and do as we pleased, although if memory serves me, playing in the fire kept us fairly preoccupied. Then one of us would hear a far off bark and we would break to wake Kenneth up. He would immediately come up on one elbow (laying on top that old station wagon) and this was a time that each of us knew if a sound was made or a stick was accidentally stepped on to make a sound, it would be bad! So the world stood still as the fox got closer and the hounds got louder. Sometimes it would seem they would get so close and then start fading out. As soon as the last yodel of the hounds was heard, Kenneth would pass out. Us boys would eventually start falling out one by one until everyone was asleep. Next thing we would know, it would be day break. Now like I said, foxes can run for miles. So for at least the following 3 days after a hunt, the dog owner drove the roads rounding up dogs. They would turn up everywhere. Thin as a rail and ready to get back in that pen until the next time. You talk about a sad looking dog, you haven't seen a sad looking dog until you've seen a hound that's been running foxes and been away from home for 2 or 3 days, but it seemed all that was forgotten by the time the next hunt came around because they were jumping on that pen and bawling to ride in the station wagon. We lived about a mile from Kenneth and if we were outside it was very easy to know when hunt night was. Those old hounds would send out an echo you wouldn't believe. All hounds wore collars too with the owners name and phone #. I couldn't even begin to count the times my daddy has seen an old hound at the side of the road and picked it up and took it back to its owner. It was just something folks did back then, everyone knew everybody. Man, how things have changed.

Now that I've bored you to death I'd like to say something about mules. Perhaps someone might find this interesting in case they didn't know. Basically animals of this kind come in 3 basic varieties: horses, donkeys, and mules. Someone wanting to be really technical could throw in a couple more but this is what I'm going to talk about here. A mule is really not a breed in itself but an offspring of a horse and donkey. If you breed a female horse (mare) to a male donkey (jack) then you get a mule. A female mule is called a molly and as far as I know, a male is just a mule. Much more uncommon, if you breed a male horse (stallion or stud) to a female donkey (jenny) then you get a hinny. Both the mule and the hinny are sterile which means they can't produce offspring. Of course as with anything there has been exceptions to this and although very rare cases, they have reproduced. I think since the 1500's only about 60 have been known to give birth. So mules are a class by themselves, just a product of 2 different animals. Most people know a little about horses but there is a breed of donkey I'd like to mention known as a Jesus donkey or a Jerusalem donkey. There is probably a technical term for them but this is all I know them by.They have a cross on their back, one stripe going parallel to the spine and one across that forming a very distinct cross. Mule breeder's don't like these jacks to use for breeding mares because no matter what you breed it to, that cross ALWAYS shows up. Animals truly are amazing. Sorry so long.

Brad

GREAt Story,

Please write more. I througly enjoyed it.

David

CONTINUED IN THE GENERAL TOPIC SECTION IF INTERESTED.......I don't want to take away from this thread!

Brad

Just wanted to let everyone know about the upcoming auction. It will be held on April 5th 2008 at the old Camillus Cutlery factory. It will consist of all the new, boxed knives from the Camillus factory that the bank with held. Stampler Auctions, the best in the business, as I freelance with quite a few auctioneers, as an independant contractor, will be running the sale again. 65,000 knives will be auctioned off in suitable lots for all. See you there! Mark

Hi all,
Sorry do dig up an old thread on my first post, but I stumbled across this post while doing some homework on Mule Day knives
I saw this one for sale:


It looks very much the same as the one shown earlier in the thread... But both can't be #1 can they?? What's happening here...?

Old threads resurfacing can be interesting and fun!

first of all, npc, welcome to the friendliest knife forum in the universe!
I think you are confused by what is written on the box. Both knives can be "1 of 500". They can't both be "#1 of 500". If you'll look closely at the bolster I think you will see the actual "serial" number is different on those knives. (257 or 287 on the one in your post)
I hope this helps

Aaaaahhhh! All becomes clear
Thanks!

Well, if anyone is interested it's on www.shopgoodwill.com (which I guess is the ebay for goodwill shops, which I believe does stuff for the community - does that mean it goes to charity?) Currently at just over 50 bucks and closing soon.

I can't have it cause they won't post to Australia, but seems you lot have soft spot for these things so it might be interesting to one of you.

Cheers - I shall get back to my browsing shiny pointy things!

Thanks for the heads up! Don't be a stranger, come on back anytime!
You are correct about Goodwill. The money goes to help the needy.