All About Pocket Knives

There was a time when men went to work dressed in a three piece suit and carried a watch in their vest pocket.On the other side of the chain that was attached to the watch was a small pocket knife. The small size dictated that their use was limited to mostly trimming their fingernails and cutting the end of their cigars.
As time wore on the three piece suit was exchanged for a two piece and the pocket watch ditched in favor of the new-fangled wrist watch. A knife was still carried but it lost the bail and chain and was relegated to the front pocket of the pants.
For those who did not wear a suit everyday but more likely a pair of bib overalls the knife of choice was a much more heavy duty model such as a stockman or a large jack. When they dressed for church on Sunday they put on a suit and exchanged their everyday work knife for a,"Sunday" knife. This was usually much smaller and fancier;many times having mother of pearl handles.Some even reverted to the use of a pocket watch and fob knife.
Here are some examples of these lovely little vest pocket knives.Hope you enjoy them and feel free to post any you might enjoy.
#1 Clay Cutlery Andover NY
#2 ESEMCO.Not sure but this could be an acronym for Schatt & Morgan.
#3 Gold Top Sheffield.
#4 Hayward
#5 I*XL Geo. Wostenholm with 14k gold handles.
#6 JewelryCutlery & Novelty Co. #1
#7 Jewelry Cutlery & Novelty Co. with a Masonic emblem and a key blank for a secondary blade.These were for Post Office boxes.
#8 Landers,Frary,and Clark
#9 Lustern 12kGold Filled.
#10 MSR USA I have no idea what this company's name is.

Page too
#1 O.M.D. stamped on bail.
#2 R.O.R. stamped on bail.Looks like a J.C.&N. Co. knife.
#3 Schatt & Morgan Titusville PA
#4 Sheffield Steel Gold Filled.
#5 Sheffield USA
#6 Stamped,"Sturdy"
#7 Swank
#8 Voos A&Z on bail
#9 W.B.&Co.;possibly Wester & Butz
#10 W.G.C.Extra stamped inside a shield.

Some great looking knives! I'm really partial to those that have highly engraved patterns on the handles.


I'm probably one of the few people that still do this. I don't like to have a visible pocket clip, I don't want to have a belt sheath. I don't want something that is heavy, somewhat uncomfortable, and prints in the lighter khakis/dress pants (well, I actually wear Columbia hiking pants as dress pants, since it has zippered pockets). That's most of my work knives since most are heavy (Bucks and multitools), others are clip-carry. And, G-10 and many grip patterns on fiberglass reinforced nylon handles destroy pocket seams. Thus, I chose something 3" or so, fancier handles (usually, steel or stag, since none of my MOP knives have intact handles), and lightweight. Some are really old, some are really modern. A lot are, surprisingly, corporate giveaway knives from the time A: knives were viewed as tools and B: they cared about the quality of what they were handing out. I have an EKA (giveaway from a manufacturer of industrial pumps) with very ornate handles that do most of what I need when out and about at an event. Though, I gotta have scissors! The EKA is just blade, nail file, and screwdriver/bottle opener. That's where the Director from Victorinox comes in (a giveaway from a Swiss valve manufacturer).

If it involves something like a family gathering at the old homeplace (with plenty of woods around) or a church picnic (often in Pipestem State Park), I'll go with an outdoor carry, or keep it in a backpack. If I'm helping set up for some fancy affair, again, I'll go with mechanical/technical (aka equipment maintenance) in a bag and formal on me. Even though those Columbias have tons of pockets, I don't like to load them down.

Beautiful knives!
Thanks

Awesome showing! Thanks!!

I have at least 100 of these "Sunday" knives, German, USA, British & Italian. I bought most of them years ago. In the last few years i have been trying to sell off most of my knives. I have sent a bunch of these "Sunday" knives to an ebay seller in Portland OR. who sells mostly knives and has a large ebay 'following'. With opening bids of $9.99 none of them got even one bid. It seems like almost no knife collectors collect these knives now.
kj

Nice story on evolution of Sunday knives. Nice collection too.

Bob