All About Pocket Knives

I would like to show these antique pistol knives. Many of these are switchblade knives, these were very expensive to buy when they were made, premium handle material and ornate bolsters on most of them. I think most of these were collected by gun collectors many years ago and they are still mostly sold at gun shows and auctions.

They are not often seen on these internet knife forums so I clipped these photos from the inter-web for posterity on AAPK.

If you have any please show them off here, would love to see them!

Those things are always interesting to look at. Kinda' like a SAK from yesteryear. Am I correct in assuming the triggers on several are also double as corkscrews?
Treefarmer

Thanks for posting those Dimitri. My friend Bob in Nashua had an Unwin & Rogers for awhile but sold it awhile back.You don't see them come up for sale very often and when you do the prices usually look like telephone numbers I'll have to load those pics into my doc file.
If I recall correctly some states have specific laws against them.

Those are incredible. Thanks for posting those photos, Dimitri.

So cool.

Even by the standards of their day, some of them were impractical.

I think, given the unreliability of firearms at the time, the addition of a stabbing blade was thought of as follow-on insurance.

I like the Unwin & Rogers best, I think, but that one in the case is very interesting and not of a small caliber.

That second one from the top looks French or Belgian with its pinfire revolver and that's the biggest blade I've sever seen on one of these.

I know someone that owns a large period Bowie knife with ivory handles and a single shot firearm built into the handle. The short barrel lies along one side of the blade.

I once had a .38 revolver by Harrington & Richardson that had a folding sabre-cut bayonet beneath the barrel.

I did a Google Image search and there are lots of photos of such knives.

Are you limiting this thread to antique folding knife/pistols?

Charlie Noyes

RobesonsRme.com wrote:Are you limiting this thread to antique folding knife/pistols?

No sir, please post the fixed blade ones as well

treefarmer wrote:Am I correct in assuming the triggers on several are also double as corkscrews?
Treefarmer

Sure does look that way, I have never examined one of those only the ones with a conventional fold down trigger.

Cool knives Dimitri - thanks for posting those photos ... I am not sure I have ever seen one (I may know of someone who told me about them or did have one at one time)... certainly would think they are a pretty rare pattern to find...

I love these! Wish they weren't so expensive so I could collect them. Your pictures show a couple really rare ones. That long stag piece is a gorgeous rarity.

A member here told me the story on the 'corkscrew'. Think of it more as an alarm clock. People that could afford items like this, many times travelers, would screw the trigger into a door or window frame. If opened the single shot would fire, scaring the sh!t out of the intruder and alerting the owner to grab slightly heavier weapon.

I own one that is a little older then these, this one is a flintlock and the blade is more of a spike.

A pistol with a bayonet. Cool.



I noticed that when Bryan moved to the new server, he increased the number of pictures allowed in a post. It used to be ten and I see Dimitri was able to insert sixteen. I wonder what the new limit is.

That's awesome, Otis!

Here are a couple I have laying around the flintlock has a spring or automatic blade. Actually these were among the first switchblades (early 1800s) they served a purpose since flintlocks were so unreliable these gave the owner a second chance to eliminate his ( or her ) adversary when his weapon misfired. You then simply activated the blade and stuck the foe. The second is an American Novelty Co, or U.S. small arms sales CO, Huntsman which had a regular manual blade and fired a 22 cal rim fire. The pic I am attaching shows various ads for this item in a display. they made the Huntsman ( model 214) which was 4 inch and the defender (model 215) which was 3 inch overall closed. These were recommended for taking with you while hunting, fishing, or trapping to dispatch an animal before skinning or to carry as a pocket knife for self defense. Ads suggest these for boyscouts to carry with them. Things have changed a bit. Today a kid gets expelled or a jail term for bringing a water squirt gun to school. Back then you wore your boyscout uniform to class and had your skinning gun knife in your pocket. In order to buy this item you simply had to put 5 dollars in cash or stamps with a return address and mail it. No age no reason just the money and a return address. Ah yes the good old days. If you can find one of these today I have seen people asking 3000 dollars for one in good condition. I do not know if anyone ever actually sold one for that much money. LT

As I was thinking about where or if I ever saw one of these combo gun/knives I realized I had read that Charles Billings (eventually Billings & Spencer Co Hartford CT) produced a combo bowie knife and 38 caliber pistol that was produced and patented in 1868... before Billings & Spencer Charles Billings was in the gun business working for Colt and also made the Roper revolving shotgun... anyway - anyone ever see one of these made by Billings? Love to see a combo Bowie with a 38 - must have some size to it I assume...

Great thread M.B. with some wonderful examples shown. These model types have a long lineage which date back to the mid 1700s and the flintlock era. folding bayonets in both manual and spring fired form predate those with folding blades which could cut as well as stab. Two great flintlock examples are shown by "Otis" and "LT" which are both spring fired versions and are the birth of the switchblade as "LT" stated. The springs are short and stout on those models and are attached to the underside of the bayonets. When folded against the barrel, the trigger guard (which is also spring loaded) can be pulled back slightly to engage the tip of the bayonet. The trigger is pulled to fire the pistol and the trigger guard is pulled to fire the bayonet. As "Otis" had mentioned, on later models which have what looks like a corkscrew trigger, are in fact a gimlet trigger. A gimlet is much finer and shallower in the spiral grooving and could not pull out a cork as a real corkscrew could. Gimlets are also defined as small drills for wood. The gimlet trigger was meant to screw the entire gun into a door or window frame with an attached cord to another part of the door or window so that when either was opened the gun would fire and alert the owner inside.
Though not terribly common, knife pistols are found in a great variety of shapes and sizes from the mid 1700s through the early 1900s, as well as a few modern custom renditions.

Recent pickups

Nice find

Very cool.