All About Pocket Knives

Does anyone know exactly what this is? I bought if off EBay a number of years ago and took it to my Knife Club. All I knew it was an interesting looking tool that would look good sitting with my collection of old working knives and especially with my pruning knives. An elderly member of my club, who is a 90 year old Physician told me it was a civil war era, or before, amputation knife. I thought the teeth were too coarse for a bone saw. I did my best computer search (which wasn't much) and came up empty on both the maker and the saw itself. Any ideas?____Dave

Dave, that's a wood saw. Bone saws are built more like a coping saw or miter saw and have fine teeth like a hacksaw. That's more like the saw blade in a Victorinox.

Can you post a couple pics of the saw teeth?
They sort of look like the teeth on a bone saw Gerber made.

Wow, I think I just figured out how to take close-ups on my camera. I thought it was a wood saw too but Doc. seamed pretty sure of himself. The teeth are different than the ones on my Leatherman.___Dave

It's definitely a pruning saw, I have one too.

Thanks guys Well then it will definitely fit better in with my pruning knife collection and it probably doesn't have any gory history "if only" it could talk. The larger teeth never did make a lot of sense to me. I've been spending the week cleaning and oiling my old knives and have found a bunch of knives and miscellaneous pieces I forgot I had and in some cases thinking"what the heck is this thing?" ___Dave

The reason I question the teeth of the saw was that I was a Gerber bone saw that had similar teeth; the long teeth with the shorter teeth between them. I could not snag a picture of the Gerber saw from Cabala’s website.
However, I was able to get good close-up pictures of this EverSaw all-purpose saw.
The ad says: “EASILY CUTS wood, bone & plastic. MULTI-PURPOSE utility saw. Easy and safe to carry.” - http://www.amazon.com/EverSaw-8-0-Foldi ... +saw&psc=1


When you compare the two blade designs and account for a century and half of age and use... The same large/small blade combination is found on the Schrade 225OT, "Son-of-a-Gun," appearing in the Schrade catalogs from 1991-1992.
The 225OT was advertised as a saw for game, deer, elk, moose even elephants (that was a different era obviously). The technology of steel and saw design has changed vastly in the last 150 years. What we recognize as a wood saw in 2016 is probably a remarkable improvement over the surgical bone saws of the 1860s. A Civil War surgeon would probably love to have one of todays pruning saws with which to have preformed surgical amputations in his day.

To us it looks like an old pruning saw, but I am thinking the 90 year old physician was recognizing an antique tool of his profession!

Dale:Here is a pic of the Gerber folding saw. They have two blades and the main difference is the depth of the teeth.Also they look to be vertical which I would assume means they will cut on both the forward and aft stroke. Seems to me I recall that the main difference between European made and USA made saws was the direction of cut.European saws normally cut on the pull stroke whereas USA made(albeit early ones)cut on the push stroke.
As to the OP's knife;I doubt that it was designed as a surgical saw as the blade is way too short. Most early surgical knives that I have seen use a lot of teeth per inch and are quite a bit longer;most of them being a minimum of about 10 inches of blade length. I suppose you could use it as an emergency saw to remove a limb(after rendering the subject unconscious of course).

So...., we'll call it a definite saw of some kind. It is, contrary to the way it looks before you pick it up, remarkably well made and feels like a lockback when you close it. It must have a longer flat area on the spring to keep it open and takes an intentional push to start it closing, and then it is nice and smooth. None of the antique amputation saws I found on line look exactly like this although one is fairly close, but the doctor I mentioned loves antiques and is really sharp and into antiques so I'm not crossing either off my list quite yet. I'd love to find out something about the stamping on the saw to see what clues that might give us.. ___Dave