All About Pocket Knives

Before anyone calls the "M.I.B" also known as (AAPK Men in Black) let me state that this is only a "What If" circumstance.
What would be the #1 collected pocket knife if Case Cutlery never existed?
Even if you do not collect Case, most would agree that Case has been and is our current foundation to where we are at now.

What do you think would be the most collected, written about, sought after, researched, sold, purchased, displayed etc.etc.
Hundreds of manufacturers to choose from.
Choose one, perhaps a small description as to why you made your choice?

My choice would be "Schrade"
Why? One of the largest makers, great American history (founded in 1904), easy to date, many were made, excellent quality.


Dang!!! Gotta go. They're here!

Just for thought,Schrade has been closed for almost 10 years and after 1960 most of their knives had plastic(delrin) handles.I like older Schrades.

peanut740 wrote:Just for thought,Schrade has been closed for almost 10 years and after 1960 most of their knives had plastic(delrin) handles.I like older Schrades.

You are correct sir. (I also prefer the older Schrades)
I will accept that as a vote for Schrade.

Remington pre 1939 IMO

Probably New York Knife or Robeson. Both huge companies in business before Remington, Ulster, Utica or Union (Ka-Bar).____Dave

New York Knife Co. Walden

Old Folder wrote:

peanut740 wrote:Just for thought,Schrade has been closed for almost 10 years and after 1960 most of their knives had plastic(delrin) handles.I like older Schrades.

You are correct sir. (I also prefer the older Schrades)
I will accept that as a vote for Schrade.

For the record I like most pre 1940 knives.

Interesting question. I'm gonna say Remington, or Cattaraugus. Both produced pocket cutlery of unsurpassed quality. In their heyday Remington was probably the largest volume cutlery works in the world and the association with the firearms name still has strong positive pull to this day. Forty to fifty years ago Remington and Cattaraugus were on a par with Case in collector popularity, at least from my personal experience. Having exited the cutlery business in 1939 puts Remington cutlery approximately even with Case Tested as a brand era. Cattaraugus exited the business in the 1960's. Since you're restricting us to "choose one" I guess I'll go with Remington, based on sheer volume of production - there's still a lot of them out there despite not having been produced (except reproductions) in over 75 years.

Ask yourself, where would Case be today as a collectable brand if there were no post-1940 Case XX, Case XX U.S.A., or dotted knives?

Ken

Right now, in 2016, if Case had never existed it would have to be Buck. The rest were history before our theoretical loss of Case - Buck is still here in real life, still turning out tens of thousands of knives monthly, and still pretty darn popular as an everyday, working knife (which is what all the brands started out as - manufacturers of knives as tools). The Case of today still sells some working knives (I carry a few), but really exists off of it's wonderfully historic old name, selling much of it's production as collectibles. OH

Camillus.
I have read that Camillus made more contract knives than knives branded "Camillus". That's a lot of knives out there in collections. Might even top Case knives for total number in collections.
kj

Ok all of you know or will know now that I'm biased on this Case thing! Let's all remember that if JBF Champlin did not marry a Case and higher the Case boys might never have been into knives, there I said it.

Most everyone here knows I am mainly a Case knife collector but I agree with Mike. Champlin was the start of the Case knife brand by employing the Case Bros in the 1st place. I love the Friedmann & Lauterjung knives and also the "Electric" knives and pick them up whenever I get the chance. Not enough of them to support an extensive collection unfortunately.
If it were not for Case I really doubt that any brand would dominate the collectors interest.
All of the brands mentioned so far are quality knives for sure. add miller bros to those already mentioned.

I agree with Oderdogs; Cattataugus... hands down whether there was ever a Case or not.

I'm actually going to break with what seems to be the two main schools of thought on this one and say that, without an American Case presence after 1940 or so, Boker may have focused more and longer on U.S. cutlery manufacturing and created quite the collector stir. Some of the nicer bone Barlows of the time are Bokers, and I think we all have at least one or two Boker USA patterns we like and think could have used more variations/production, like many of the popular Case patterns would have seen.

Schrade, Catt, NYK and even Camillus are also excellent suggestions -- I'd also wonder if Ulster shouldn't get consideration?

Schrades are my main thing anyways, so there's my opinion

An interesting question and one that I pondered for some time before attempting a reply.
First of all we owe everything we have learned about this hobby due to the efforts of two or three people who most of you probably never heard of. The first would be a man named Allen Trout who was a columnist for the Louisville(KY)Courier-Journal who wrote a column and founded a club called the," Barlow Bearcats". The only requisite for membership in the club was to own a Russell Barlow knife.
The second was a knife collector from Tennessee named Roy Scott who started publishing a small newsletter called,"The Blue Mill Blade" and went on to found the National Knife Collectors & Dealers Association. The person who really promoted this association was Jim Parker who probably did more than anyone to promote the hobby. Whatever your personal feelings about Jim you cannot deny his contribution to the hobby.
There were of course others that were in on the,"ground floor" so to speak: John Goins; Dewey Ferguson;Roy Ritchie & Ron Stewart;and of course that,"lovable old fuzz-ball" Bernard Levine!
Others were the custom knife makers who started the Knifemaker's Guild and the American Bladesmith Society and the many other local clubs that promoted the hobby.
With that aside my opinion of what would be most written about and collected today would have to be one of the old English firms such as George Wostenholm or Joseph Rodgers.If the first world war hadn't taken the lives of so many cutlers I think they would still be going strong to this day. For an American firm it might have been Landers,Frary,& Clark or John Russell. Although Remington and Winchester both produced a huge number of high quality knives their main focus was firearms and they both abandoned the cutlery business to resume production of them.
It really i difficult to pick any one company because there were so many manufacturers that produced high quality knives. Just my opinion folks;your mileage may vary.

I think an "honorable mention" should be Boulder made Western pocket knives. IMO they are every bit as good as Case or Schrades, of course I have a little bit of personal connection to them, since I used to deliver steel to them after my tour in the Army 1964-66. Nice ole "vintage" knives. Terry