All About Pocket Knives

I found this knife on a local hunt a few years ago but forgot about it among my pen knives. One of my scores for the “special opportunity” aspect of my collecting ...

This appears to be an early Robeson based on the tang stamps and thought a Robeson with a Federal shield was somewhat unique (?). Nice jigged bone with some worm groove jigging on a 2 & ¾” knife – looks like Rogers Bone to me as well but not sure. Interestingly the blades have 2 different tang stamps. The Master has “Robeson/ShurEdge (script)/U.S.A.” (1916-1939) on the mark side and a pattern # stamp of 62664 on pile side tang. The pen blade is stamped “Robeson (arched)/Co/Cutlery” (1900-1916)… Thus from these stamps one can deduce a time frame of date of manufacture +/- 1916 given the 2 stamps overlap in that time frame. As noted by pattern # the bolsters are iron though the liners are brass. Knife is uncleaned condition which is normal for me (except for oil in the pivot) - I do think this knife was well carried based on patina and the nickel silver shield still has a shine probably based on the fact it was well carried in a pants pocket which kept that shield polished

I wanted to share it here with on the Robeson subforum – I have 2 Robeson’s now and don’t chase them as I have stumbled on the few I found - and I think Charlie has me thinking about them subconsciously (no doubt Robeson made some lovely knives) … Thanks for looking!!

Here are the photos -

That's a good looking little pen knife, Lee.
I spent the last half hour looking for a 664 in pearl in my pile but I don't have one.
Yours is a gem.

Thanks Joe ....

They had some nice bone Lee. That’s typical looking Robeson to me, with worm groove or Indian trails if you prefer.

Beautiful knife Lee!! That is one of the most unique Robesons I have seen posted! Carry it in good health!

Thanks Lyle .. Worm groove or Indian Trail jigged bone is no doubt one of my favorites - I have seen that jigging on Robeson and of course Cattaraugus but also I've seen a number of H&B knives with worm groove jigged bone handles as well.. I know other cutleries used that jigging as well.

Thanks woodwalker ... I was wondering around an antique fair when that knife caught my eye among 30 others on a table I knew it was a Robeson but was not that familiar with dating the many stamps Robeson used over the years. After looking it up at home I realized it was an earlier Robeson, and this is just my guess but possibly a transition knife given the dating of the 2 different stamps

Very nice little knife. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a Federal shield on this pattern.

The pattern number is actually 626064. They often omitted that zero from the number on patterns from 001 to 099, making a space saving five digit number, especially on the smaller knives.

I don’t recommend relying on secondary blade marks for the purpose of dating a Robeson knife. Just go by the master blade mark and Tom Kalcevic’s date chart in Knives Can Talk!, and take those with a grain of salt, because they are just educated assumptions. There are no official records from Robeson re’ tang stamp starts and stops.

Robeson did make the pattern in pearl and I have an 064 pearl three blade whittler.

Charlie

Thanks very much Charlie - I was hoping you would comment on the knife (especially given the Federal shield) and dating of the tang stamps as I was curious and only guessing based on Kalcevic's chart... I thought I had read a comment by you once that the tang stamps were estimates and that especially the secondary blades were not necessarily a good way to date the knives by tang stamp. In just a perusal of this thread I did not see that many knives with the tang stamp so thought it was interesting (Robeson (arched)/Co/Cutlery) ... The Federal shield I had not seen as well when searching Robeson knives but thought you would know for sure how common that may have been - it looks original to the knife to me though you did not indicate it was not, and one can see the pin on it, so I was guessing that was one unique feature of this Robeson knife (and one I actually quite like given the size)... Much appreciated!