All About Pocket Knives

Hi. I just joined the forum. I bought about 30 pocket knives at an estate sale as a lot. I am going to give most of them to my father as a gift. He knows a lot more about knives than I do and I was hoping to identify one particularly interesting knife.

I already read a few of the posts about Camillus Boy Scout knives. But, I found a "Standard Scout" and I am trying to get a date and style.

This looks A LOT like the Camillus Scout #1996 knife except instead of the badge shaped shield it is a little different and says "Standard Scout" and has two crossed flags. It has all the other features of the BSA #1996 except the punch is a Spiral punch.

Here are some pictures. I have not clean it up yet.

..on the primary blade, does it have u. s. a. stamped under Camillus n.y. ??........

Nobleprofessor wrote: I have not clean it up yet.

Welcome to AAPK

Don't. That's an old one and good just the way it is. Search out any rust spots (from the pictures, it doesn't look like there are any), scrub them with a lead pencil and wipe the spot clean with a dry rag. Lube the joints with household oil or light machine oil (I.E. 3-In-One oil or equivalent), then back away and enjoy it.

Don't forget to tell your dad about AAPK.

Welcome!!

Knice score my friend!

Ditto what my friend Jerry said.
If it has USA Stamped under Camillus, NY it is a Pre-WWII Camillus!

carrmillus wrote:..on the primary blade, does it have u. s. a. stamped under Camillus n.y. ??........

It says

CAMILLUS
CUTLERY CO
CAMILLUS NY

If it says USA underneath then it isn't visible.

jerryd6818 wrote:

Nobleprofessor wrote: I have not clean it up yet.

Welcome to AAPK

Don't. That's an old one and good just the way it is. Search out any rust spots (from the pictures, it doesn't look like there are any), scrub them with a lead pencil and wipe the spot clean with a dry rag. Lube the joints with household oil or light machine oil (I.E. 3-In-One oil or equivalent), then back away and enjoy it.

Don't forget to tell your dad about AAPK.

Ok. THANKS for the info. It doesn't really have any rust, just some discoloration here or there.

So, is from the same time period as the #1996 (1941-46) ?

Nobleprofessor wrote:

jerryd6818 wrote:

Nobleprofessor wrote: I have not clean it up yet.

Welcome to AAPK

Don't. That's an old one and good just the way it is. Search out any rust spots (from the pictures, it doesn't look like there are any), scrub them with a lead pencil and wipe the spot clean with a dry rag. Lube the joints with household oil or light machine oil (I.E. 3-In-One oil or equivalent), then back away and enjoy it.

Don't forget to tell your dad about AAPK.

Ok. THANKS for the info. It doesn't really have any rust, just some discoloration here or there.

So, is from the same time period as the #1996 (1941-46) ?

.....if it does not have the u.s.a. stamped as a 4th. line, it could be anytime from 1915-1941, according to goin's!!!.............. ..................

TripleF wrote:Welcome!!

Knice score my friend!

Ditto what my friend Jerry said.
If it has USA Stamped under Camillus, NY it is a Pre-WWII Camillus!

If I fold the main blade back in enough, I can just make out the A.

It's that shield that makes me think it's pre-WWII. Camillus knives are extremely difficult to date just using tang stamps In fact, Camillus knives are extremely difficult to date period (at least for me and especially pre-WWII knives). I've seen that shield somewhere and some comment on it but for the life of me, I can't remember when or where.

The darkened blades without rust is known as patina and is very desirable among some collectors. I think you have a real jewel there. As far as value, I don't have a clue. Philco is a Scout Knife guy. Send a PM to him and reference this thread. Maybe he can help or know who can.

....the 4line I have that has the compass in the handle has a banner-type shield that says "scout knife".......... ..............

carrmillus wrote:....the 4line I have that has the compass in the handle has a banner-type shield that says "scout knife".......... ..............

....there are pictures of my knife on this forum, on page 4(early Camillus 4 line scout with compass)...... ........

Nice ones!

Welcome here.
You may have some more jewels in that pile and not realize it.
You take good pictures. Can you send more pictures of more knives.
We would love to see them.

This Camillus Standard Scout Knife was not an official boy scout knife; however, some consider it Semi-official because it was considered to be a "Premium Knife" given away to Boys who sold Boy's Life magazines and hit certain sales milestones.

As such, it was listed/documented in gift catalogs and Boy's Life magazine -- based on those timeframes, it is likely to be pre 1930's.

ronfish wrote:As such, it was listed/documented in gift catalogs and Boy's Life magazine

Do you have the scans of these documents?

This is well documented in Kerr's "600 Scout Knives" guide on page 114; pages 113 & 114 provide some very interesting reading in this regard.

Old BSA equipment catalogs, Boy's Life Magazine's and BSA Gift Catalogues provide a unique way to validate the actual time periods where BSA related knives were offered.

Undoubtedly J.R. Kerr has done a great job, but I do not have full confidence in this book, as it contains a lot of mistakes.
I have two semi-official Camillus Scout knives But the only the second I can date precisely (1939) because it has a hot stamp on the reverse side of the handle. I want to know the specific issue of the Boys' Life magazine, which referred to any of these knives.

I will concede that there are inaccuracies in Kerr's book but also in Holbrook's. However, some of the inaccuracies in Kerr's book are more administrative where he did not properly map pictures to his numbering system. Other errors in Kerr's, and in Holbrook's, mistakenly assume that there was only one version of a given knife (bail versus no bail, blade type, shieldless withwithout etch, etc). I have opened and actually own cartons of new-old-stock with 6 or 12 unopened BSA knives and found inconsistencies not documented in either guide.

I do not know the exact issue or catalog that this knife was published in but I have seen other issues where "premium" knives were being offered for promotions via words and some via pictures. Sometimes they were actually official knives but some were not. Regarding your pics, the 2nd imitation pearl is clearly not the semi-official version, as it was made for the 1939 NY World's Fair (as stated).

There is no claim that these knives were "only" created for Boy's Life purposes, so I don't think we should assume that this is the case and that Kerr is wrong (he also lists this disclaimer). As such, any knife of this type may be one of the promotional knives or it may not have been; there is no way to know for sure unless you buy one from an old scout who has the story of how he obtained it.

In general, most of the early knives that were made using "Scout", "Scoutknife", "Boy Scout", etc, were manufactured before 1945 as the BSA was eventually able to prevent other companies from using the word Scout on knives. As such, we can assume that these knives were made during that period from 19-teens to 1945 but cannot really PROVE that any one of them was obtained as the result of the promotion. However, a collection can certainly have representative and beautiful specimens like the 2 you shared and the one earlier in the thread!

Here's a link to the Wayback Machine for Boy's Life where you can view any edition from any year complete with advertisements although according to Kerr you'd need to look at about 30 years (360 editions) between 1915 and 1945 to find the document that you are looking for.

http://boyslife.org/wayback/

Sorry to bring back this old post. But, it was very helpful previously. I found an old pocket knife that looks A LOT like my Camillus Scout knife, but it looks like it was made by Ulster. When i first tried to identify it I thought it said "UTSTER" and I wondered if a K or C had worn off. After searching the forum, I think it is a Ulster and it must be one of the unofficial Boy Scout knives. It does not have the Scout Shield.

Here are some pics: