All About Pocket Knives

Hi Guys

I could use some help on identifying this pocket knife. It is outside of my collecting interest. It came to me because it belonged to a WW2 RAN serviceman. It was not his service knife. Whether he private purchased it during the war or post war I do not know.

It is a well made knife.

The clip point main blade from kick to tip is 97mm

The pen blade is 51mm

Overall it is 225mm.

It has brass liners and nickel silver bolsters.

The main blade locks in position and there is a release mechanism that is activated by compressing the pen blade.

I am uncertain as to what the scales are made of. I suspect a one or antler. It is very hard.

There is only a makers mark on the pen blade and unfortunately that has been partly obscured by one of the few rust spots on the knife.

Hope someone can help.

Regards

Dutchy

I'm getting "___ARX(G?)_____" CELEBRATED CUTLERY on the tang stamp. Enlarged the picture.

This may not be possible unless there was wording above that which you have pictured that has worn off? Landers, Frary, & Clark? Is what appears to be an X actually a Y ?

It could be Marx & Co. Goins lists them as the original of Hen & Rooster.

I'm seeing

?ARX & C

I found a "MARX & CO." out of Solingen founded in 1887

and

A.A. MARX (later A.A. MARKS) based in Broadway, New York, was a maker of prosthetic limbs after the civil war and rare ads for the company sometimes have a knife on them, usually one handers.

There's a reference book

Australian and New Zealand Cutlers and Cutlery 1788 - 1988
By Keith Matthew Spencer, Joan Renton-Spencer · 2015

That may have an answer, IF the knife was made "locally".

I'd definitely go with Marx & Co. Their tang stamps always had the "Celebrated Cutlery" on them.

Eric

Hi Guys

Thank you very much for your input.

Armed with this advice I have had a search of the internet and found the following photo on a knife offered for sale as a Rare Marx & co Celebrated Cutlery multitool knife and an article by Bernard Levine.

These sources confirm the advice that the knife is by Marx & Co!


My next stop was the 1915 edition of Kelly’s Directory of world businesses. There, in a long list of cutlery manufacturers, I found, “Marx & Co., Solingen Germany.”

Then I turned to Mr. Henning Ritter of Solingen, who is both a knife manufacturer and a cutlery historian. He has done a special study of Jewish cutlery firms in Solingen that were active before the Third Reich, and Marx is a Jewish name. Here is what he told me.

“Marx & Co. (or Marx & Cie.) was founded in 1887 and was owned from 1899 to 1914 by Albin and Simeon Marx. The nearby 1922 advertisement lists the company as “Factory of die forged cutlery goods.” A 1939 directory entry calls it a ‘Steelware Factory.’

"The trademark of a quill pen and inkwell was registered in 1900, and various other brand names and trademarks were registered.

“The Jewish owners were dispossessed by the Nazi regime and the company was listed in 1942 under new ownership as FONTANA Stahlwarenfabrik A. Ern KG. The address remained unchanged. The company was subsequently acquired by Fritz Bracht, another Solingen cutlery maker.

So it seems that this knife was pre WW2 production and could easily have found its way in to the sea bag of its former owner.


Regards Dutchy

Mystery solved.

It looks like a fairly common older German pattern made by numerous Solingen manufacturers.
kj

Well done on the research. I would like to know more about your comment "The main blade locks in position and there is a release mechanism that is activated by compressing the pen blade." Does the clip blade pop out when the pen is pressed downward? Or how does this work?
thank you

A very good locking mechanism rarely used now except for Steel Warrior.
Depress the closed pen blade and this allows the master blade to be closed. A few custom knife makers have used this design.
kj

Didn't A.G. Russell sell a knife with that lock also ?

npeters3 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 29, 2020 11:20 pm Well done on the research. I would like to know more about your comment "The main blade locks in position and there is a release mechanism that is activated by compressing the pen blade." Does the clip blade pop out when the pen is pressed downward? Or how does this work?
thank you

G'day Mate

I am away for a couple of weeks. Could be longer if I get caught up in Chinese Bat Flu lockdown!

When I get home I will get some photo's

Regards Dutchy