All About Pocket Knives

Picked this knife up today at one of my favorite antique shops along with a mid-1980's EdgeCo. switchblade made in Mexico. Except for a couple of age spots on the master blade the knife is just about mint. All three blades are tang stamped and the mater blade has a blade stamping and a model number(C819).Pile side handle has one tiny crack from the center rivet;otherwise perfect.
I'm curious as to who may have made it for Shapleigh. I was thinking Camillus due to the grooved bolsters but someone suggested it might either be Schrade or Boker USA. Any thoughts on this? Here are plenty of pictures along with the el cheapo switch.Shapleigh was $38 and the EdgeCo.$12.

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Bone handle on the DE, right ?
It is a beauty & never used and likely 50 years old or more, and you just happened to 'find' it
Ray you find amazing knives, almost every day ! Wow !
kj

kootenay joe wrote:Bone handle on the DE, right ?
It is a beauty & never used and likely 50 years old or more, and you just happened to 'find' it
Ray you find amazing knives, almost every day ! Wow !
kj

In this case I hadn't been to the shop in about a month.There are several vendors who sell knives in this shop and I have gotten some great deals from all of them.I almost passed this one by and decided to take a second look. I'm glad I did because this is the first one with this tang stamp that I have purchased.

knife7knut wrote:Picked this knife up today at one of my favorite antique shops along with a mid-1980's EdgeCo. switchblade made in Mexico. Except for a couple of age spots on the master blade the knife is just about mint. All three blades are tang stamped and the mater blade has a blade stamping and a model number(C819).Pile side handle has one tiny crack from the center rivet;otherwise perfect.
I'm curious as to who may have made it for Shapleigh. I was thinking Camillus due to the grooved bolsters but someone suggested it might either be Schrade or Boker USA. Any thoughts on this? Here are plenty of pictures along with the el cheapo switch.Shapleigh was $38 and the EdgeCo.$12.

Wow! You happened to find one of my grail knives, I am envious. The shapleigh was made by schrade cut co.

Here is a schrade catalog image of the pattern.

Paul is correct,Schrade made.Beautiful knife..Prior to their demise in 1929,Empire made all,or most Diamond Edge knives.

Amazing knife!!! What a great find. Yes Schrade as others have said. The bone alone clinches that IMO.

knife7knut wrote:Picked this knife up today at one of my favorite antique shops along with a mid-1980's EdgeCo. switchblade made in Mexico. Except for a couple of age spots on the master blade the knife is just about mint. All three blades are tang stamped and the mater blade has a blade stamping and a model number(C819).Pile side handle has one tiny crack from the center rivet;otherwise perfect.
I'm curious as to who may have made it for Shapleigh. I was thinking Camillus due to the grooved bolsters but someone suggested it might either be Schrade or Boker USA. Any thoughts on this? Here are plenty of pictures along with the el cheapo switch.Shapleigh was $38 and the EdgeCo.$12.

I sent you a pm regarding the shapleigh.

Daggonit man!! That knife is so beautiful I almost peed my pants!! Man, that is one fantastic find. I have family in Allen, MI, not too far from you and I have checked out antique stores for a thirty mile radius from there and have never found a fine knife like that at any price.

Gunsil wrote:Daggonit man!! That knife is so beautiful I almost peed my pants!! Man, that is one fantastic find. I have family in Allen, MI, not too far from you and I have checked out antique stores for a thirty mile radius from there and have never found a fine knife like that at any price.

Thanks to all who replied and for the information.I am very happy to have acquired a D-E marked knife as it is my first. Gunsil;I am about 30 miles from Allen and they have a fair amount of antique stores there but I have never had any success finding knives there.If you are ever out in this area try coming east on M-50 and you will find a few good shops.Brooklyn and Tecumseh have several shops and Clinton has a couple on US-12 about 4 miles north of M-50

Thanks for the tip!! I had to go from Allen to Ann Arbor a couple years ago to get some warranty work done on my car and I did find a couple of shops along the way but no good knives at reasonable prices. All those "antique" malls around Allen sell a lot of junk, see few good antiques of any kind reasonably priced there. My aunt and uncle had one of the old antique shops in Allen from the early 1970s (right across from the church) until a few years ago when uncle died. Another aunt owned the "Old Brick House" bed and breakfast on the left entering Allen from the east on 12 until she passed away six years ago. Back in the 70s and 80s Allen was a great antique destination with all the little shops and many good finds came from there but with the advent of the malls and the closing of the mom and pop antique stores it seems like not a lot turns up there anymore. Hopefully I'll get out there again this summer, have a bunch of cousins right below the MI line in OH and IN and the old family farm is still family owned in Montpelier.

Ray I'll echo everyone here and say that's just an incredible find. The slant bolster Cut Cos are hard to find in any shape, yours is just over the top!

Eric

Wow - beautiful! No info to add on the Shapleigh, but the Cumosa is interesting too. It was made by Cuchilleria Monterrey - a company with a connection to Cuchilleria Imperial which is in the (extended) Schrade family. Not sure how the math works out but those knives are something like 8th cousins three times removed. That was a helluva score - congrats.

Great knife Ray.

peanut740 wrote:Paul is correct,Schrade made.Beautiful knife..Prior to their demise in 1929,Empire made all,or most Diamond Edge knives.

Shapleigh was one of the largest hardware corporations at one time, even had salesmen in the Pacific,looks like Australia or Malaysia?, Alaska, and the Caribbean. Besides the west.

They also were the exclusive southern and western distributor of Empire knives.This July15,1899 ad in the "The Age of Steel" says they are the sole agents of Empire knives,probably why you don't see many Empire marked knives.

I have a suspicion ( for more than the Empire-Shapleigh, then Scrade- Shapleigh connection ) that some of Empire’s people came over to Schrade when Empire went out .

Great knife, great information.

Beautifully preserved DE knife. WOW!