All About Pocket Knives

Many years ago pocket knives were given away as a premium for buying a companies product, some were given away for free as an advertising gimmick. The hope was that whilst carrying and using the knife others would see it and the company would receive some business also the advertising would remind the owner of the knife to patronize them.

If you are real lucky you might find an old knife with your favorite knife company advertising on it!

Here is an old Utica, really nice that it is dated, I have a box of these all in unused condition, safety award for their employees. Either they ordered too many or there were not that many safe employees!

The next one is from Chevrolet, it is an ink stamp knife. Let's see your advertising knives!

All these may not meet the criteria of OLD Advertising

not my knives or pictures. Case XX 278, 1 dot. not sure about the second.

Is that a ball point pen on the back side of the knife? Very unusual.

The top 2 were given to me by sales reps when I was a butcher during the 70's and 80's. We didn't call them fruit knives. To us they were sausage knives because the salesman would cut samples of his lunch meat or sausage on the block then hand you the knife for keeps.

I probably have two to three hundred advertising knives; including letter opener knives. Will try to post some of the more unique ones.

A few more

Nice examples Wazu

Ray, you sure have some interesting and unique ones in there!

Miller Bro's wrote:Nice examples Wazu

Ray, you sure have some interesting and unique ones in there!

Thank you Dimitri;good to see you posting again. Hope all is well in New England.

Thanks Ray, doing well up here a bit cold but we're use to it

Glad to hear you are recovering from your surgery hang in there my friend

I think this is the only advertiser I have. It is a Colonial Ranger Ultra Honed 4" stockman.

I saw one of these in Ray's pics and remembered I have one. This one is made by Wilhelm Kayser for Bayer's pesticide division. I got it from a nice old German lady.

wazu013 wrote:I saw one of these in Ray's pics and remembered I have one. This one is made by Wilhelm Kayser for Bayer's pesticide division. I got it from a nice old German lady.

Here's a couple more.........

wazu013 wrote:I saw one of these in Ray's pics and remembered I have one. This one is made by Wilhelm Kayser for Bayer's pesticide division. I got it from a nice old German lady.
Bayer-Kayser.jpgBayer.jpgBayer-1.jpg

The one I have is by F.Bronsmann. One reason I started researching the knife is the additional names on the knife.The main part says(in Spanish I think)"Productos Pharmaceuticos" Bayer-Meister Lucius and on one end in a circle,"Meister Lucius bruning Hoechst".
Came across a quite interesting reprise of the Bayer history. It was a part of a huge business conglomerate Krupp which included Bayer;Agfa BASF;GAF;and many smaller companies. Bayer was noted for a number of innovations;among them the introduction of heroin as a substitute for morphine around 1910. Strangely it was first introduced into children's cough syrup(!)and was not removed until 1971(!)
It was also credited with various pesticides and also the infamous Zyclon B gas which was used in the gas chambers during WWII. Another WWII innovation was another synthetic substitute for morphine known as methadone which is in wide use today as a weaning off drug for heroin addicts. As an aside the technical name for methadone is Dolophine which was named for..........drum roll: Adolph Hitler!
There was also many references to ties with American businessmen during the war but if one wants they can look that up on line.
Strange the things you learn when researching knives!

A few more

knife7knut wrote:

wazu013 wrote:I saw one of these in Ray's pics and remembered I have one. This one is made by Wilhelm Kayser for Bayer's pesticide division. I got it from a nice old German lady.
Bayer-Kayser.jpgBayer.jpgBayer-1.jpg

The one I have is by F.Bronsmann. One reason I started researching the knife is the additional names on the knife.The main part says(in Spanish I think)"Productos Pharmaceuticos" Bayer-Meister Lucius and on one end in a circle,"Meister Lucius bruning Hoechst".
Came across a quite interesting reprise of the Bayer history. It was a part of a huge business conglomerate Krupp which included Bayer;Agfa BASF;GAF;and many smaller companies. Bayer was noted for a number of innovations;among them the introduction of heroin as a substitute for morphine around 1910. Strangely it was first introduced into children's cough syrup(!)and was not removed until 1971(!)
It was also credited with various pesticides and also the infamous Zyclon B gas which was used in the gas chambers during WWII. Another WWII innovation was another synthetic substitute for morphine known as methadone which is in wide use today as a weaning off drug for heroin addicts. As an aside the technical name for methadone is Dolophine which was named for..........drum roll: Adolph Hitler!
There was also many references to ties with American businessmen during the war but if one wants they can look that up on line.
Strange the things you learn when researching knives!

That's interesting. I know the woman that gave me the knife worked for Bayer before she moved to the U.S. I had done a bunch of work around her house and plowed her driveway during the winter for 20 years. She found out I collected knives so she gave me this one. I know Henckels made one as well.

Here's one of my Father's old knives.

Great thread Dimitri. All of these knives are Remington and either have a blade etch advertising or a handle stamp or a shield advertising.

That's a mighty fine looking collection of advertising knives 77, thanks for sharing.

I picked up this "advertiser" at the local flea market today. It is kind of unusual for advertisers in that like none of the other knives pictured on this thread, there is no etching or printed advertising on the knife itself. The box is printed on one side "Managing for Profit" Dow Chemical USA Agricultural Products Department, and the belt sheath is embossed on the flap with "DOW", but the knife itself is not marked with anything other than the standard Imperial Frontier markings. It is marked 4515 Imperial stainless USA on the back of the blade, and is unused new in the box from 1977.

Beautiful Remingtons! I especially like the interframe in the second pic. Thanks for posting them.

Thanks k7k, that one is pretty nice. It's my opportunity to make a little poke at the CASE collectors.

BWT wrote:That's a mighty fine looking collection of advertising knives 77, thanks for sharing.

Thanks Bill

espn77 wrote:Great thread Dimitri. All of these knives are Remington and either have a blade etch advertising or a handle stamp or a shield advertising.

Thanks Keith

Wow! That's quite an assortment of advertising knives I don't think I ever seen that White Mule shield before