All About Pocket Knives

Well here is an interesting little one. Looks to be a repair job from Gustav Knauth of New York City and Spring Valley. Goins writes, "Gustav Knauth was widely known as one of New York's old-time cutlers. He was born in 1845 in Germany, where he learned the cutler's trade. He came to the United States, and settle in New York." In 1900 he opened a factory in Spring Valley. Goins also writes, "His specialty was fine pocket cutlery, including combination knives. In connection with his store and factory, he did a large amount of cutlery repaire work both for the public and the cutlery trade. Gustav Knauth passed away July 24, 1911." His son continued the business until 1941 when a fire destroyed the factory.

-The master blade is a glazed polished Humason & Beckley of New Britain, CT. This was the original frame for the master.
-The secondary blade is stamped GUSTAV KNAUTH NEW YORK N.Y. and is full crocus polished and hand forged.
-The file blade is crocus polished, although not as nicely. It also appears to be hand forged.
-The knife does not look like it has been apart in many years. You can see a slight bulge at the pin of the secondary blades which were replaced, but the bolster looks very nice.

Ayone have a G. Knauth knife to add?

Very nice knife and a very interesting bit of history about it.
I was wondering how you can tell the pen blade was hand forged? I can't see anything in the photos that would clue me in?

Dan

Dan, I say this because of the unevenness of the tang (looking down the spine from the joint to the tip) and in addition, the slightly irregular spacing of the teeth of the file. Sorry I did not take pictures of this.

That's a real treasure, Beechtree.

Congratulations on that one.

Thank you Joe, I am glad you like it. Neat bits of knife history always gets the blood flowing.

Nice catch! I have a similar knife that has two blades stamped Henckels and one stamped I*XL with the back stamped C.Langbein New York. Charles Langbein was a New York wholesaler and also repaired knives for customers.The only evidence of repair is some slight damage to one of the bolsters.

Nice! Some great pieces of American cutlery history.

Ken

Nice K7K, that is great to see. A very fine job they did, and a nice old pocket knife.

Beechtree wrote:Dan, I say this because of the unevenness of the tang (looking down the spine from the joint to the tip) and in addition, the slightly irregular spacing of the teeth of the file. Sorry I did not take pictures of this.

Thanks Beechtree, that makes sense. I am going to take a closer look at some of my older knives, which should have forged blades.

Dan

Good to do Danno, I think you will quite readily see what I am referring to.

I attached a few pics of a little fob nail care knife I found. I believe it to be sterling silver. The only marking I can see is on the tang of the nail file. But maybe you all can see more than I can. I think it a little gem.

Pretty! I love the shape of that Main blade. Do you plan on reprofiling it, or leave it as is?

Great knives guys love the first one!!!

Some very nice looking knives posted.