All About Pocket Knives

Gardner 1876, 1876-1883. 3 3/4" closed.
Joseph William Gardner founded the firm in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts.

That's a fine looking vintage knife. Joe you sure do know how to pick em.

Great looking knife Joe.

Thanks guys.

Great old knife, Joe! In very good shape for it's age.
Dan

Knife Joe!

Here's a boy's knife I have. I think Lee has one too that I would like to see in this thread

I have a knife box somewhere also

Nice Gardners all ... Here comes mine Dimitri ...

This one is a 3" Boys Knife with Gardner's patented folded bolster... It was pointed out to me when I scored it about the folded bolster and have the patent file as well - funny thing is when I submitted it to Knife Magazine for the Boys Knife article Mark Zalesky noted in an email to me that is was cool as it has the folded bolster before I even noted it to him (he hadn't received the article text or captions as of yet which had that info) but he seemed to know.. I had not a photo of it by itself so edited another photo that had a lineup of MA-made Boys knives similar to that in the article.....
Now lets see the knife box Dimitri ..

Thanks, Dan and Dimitri.

Dimitri, that is a very nice knife. Thanks for showing that here.
Lee will probably look in here. I hope.

Opps, there he is!

I never owned this box, just snagged the image a long time ago.

Cool box Steve ... even if it wasn't yours .. Be interesting to see if Dimitri has a similar box similar or different ...

Beautiful little knife, Lee and a good looking, clean box, Steve.
Thank you both for showing them here.

Same box Steve posted

Nice knives, Dimitri and Lee! Lee, what is a folded bolster?
Thanks
Dan

Thanks Dan ... Essentially the liner was made with an extended piece that was folded back over to create the bolster - thus the liner and bolster were one piece when made... Here's the patent image I was able to save as a jpg below which helps visualize it:

Great Gardner's all, very hard to find knife. If I read the books correctly they were only in business for 10 years or so.

I've got 2 Gardner 1876 Barlows, 1 is unfinished and the other is a generous gift from Charlie so I could show a finished one with the unfinished. These Barlows have the same integral bolster construction as the vintage Sheffield Barlows of the time, simple and tough. Hopefully Charlie sees this thread as he has some Gardners with that patent construction.

Important patent information, Lee, thank you.

Two great Gardner examples, John. Thank you.

Those are some sweet classic Gardeners John .... the unfinished one is cool - wonder what the story is behind that one...

Thanks for the reply and posting that patent, Lee. John, very nice Gardners, interesting to see the unfinished one.
Dan

Thank you Joe, Lee,Dan. Lee, I do find it interesting that it survived over 100 years unfinished, it would have taken nothing to put an edge on it and use it. It did come from a town very close to the original Gardner factory, maybe a factory worker took it home when they closed down as a memento.

Thought this should be on the Gardner thread.

Thanks for posting that very nice Gardner box here, DARRELL MAINES.

Saw that on Ebay, I think.

Congratulations. Got to be a rare box.

Charlie

The below pictured, short 2 page article pertaining to Joseph W. Gardner, is on page #179 within the "New England Cutlery" book by Philip R. Pankiewicz, published in 1986.
Bernard Levine rates J.W. Gardner knives as "Very High" value.
Mr. Gardner had a very short run as a knife manufacturer, (1876-1883) I have seen a few (very few) J.W. Gardner knives posted by some of the members here on aapk and you are very fortunate to have one, or some of his knives in your collection.
I, unfortunately do not possess any of his wonderful knives, however, I do have one of his beautiful old knife boxes.
I purchased this in the mid-eighties from a antique advertising show here in So. Ca. I do not recall how much I paid, but I'm sure it was only a few dollars and the seller had no other knife items.
You will notice that there is written text within the square folds on the inside portion of the sleeved box, I imagine this was applied prior to the initial folding and was applied for reinforcement. The applied text has nothing to do with the Gardner Co.

You will also notice that there is a George Washington 3 cent U.S. Postage Stamp, perfectly centered and affixed to the inside bottom of the box. I researched the 3 cent stamp and discovered that this stamp was first printed in 1870 and was discontinued in 1871. The earliest known use was March 1, 1870. So...the stamp would have been made prior to Gardner's knife business. It is not a high value stamp, unfortunately, not a "Inverted Jenny".
I have no idea why a U.S. Postage stamp was inserted within the knife box, I have never seen another situation pertaining to U.S. Postage Stamps inserted within boxes of any sort. It appears that it has been affixed since day one of the box manufacturer due to it's natural patina around the stamp perforations.
It is not a "U.S. Internal Revenue Tax Stamp" (Which was used to help pay for the costs of the Civil War).
Any ideas or suggestions about this stamp? Have you ever seen a stamp inside a knife or cutlery box before?

I have often wondered how a simply made, low quality paper box can survive after all these years? However, many of the old knife boxes I have and have seen, have been reinforced with colored masking tape for reinforcement and done at the box manufacturer, as you can see, the J.W. Gardner's printed label is placed on the box "after" the yellow reinforcement tape was applied.

You will notice the picture on the box is of the original 3 story, frame building knife factory that Mr. Gardner built in 1878. That's 140 years ago as of this writing, 13 years after the American Civil War ended.

Neat box, now that's the fourth different label I have seen!

Really nice box Old Folder ... Very interesting info about the stamp in the box and associated research... thanks for sharing!! Quite a variation of Gardner box labels posted in this thread ...