All About Pocket Knives

This was my grandfather's pocket knife. One side may show part of the word 'ACCESSORIES' and '2. N. Y.' The blade has 'HIGH CARBON STEEL U.S.A' stamped on one side. It still works great and snaps when you open and closes it. Any help is appreciated.

Made for Sears by Camillus in the 1950's I believe. to AAPK!!!

welcome to AAPK.

Edited to remove all doubt that I'm a DA.

Although it says,"High Carbon Steel USA" on the tang,I don't think it is a Camillus. It appears to be a shell handle so my guess would be either Imperial or Colonial(more than likely the latter).

Good eye Ray. Always pays to not get too froggy. (that would be me getting froggy, not Ray)

Could be an Ad Knife also. Did Colonial stamp their knives High Carbon?

Looks a lit like a Colonial knife. They did make a lot of advertising knives and such.

With those particular type of handle rivets and the rib on the bolster I can be pretty certain it is a Colonial.JMHO

From 1956 until 1959 Sears offered a low price line of pocket knives that were listed in their catalogs. They were all priced between $.45 cents to $.96 cents and had smooth plastic colored handles and some had a faux pearl design. Sears listed them as being low price but having High Carbon Steel blades. This line of knives were all shell knives and did not have a Sears or Craftsman logo. The early ones did have High Carbon Steel on the blades. It is believed they were made by Colonial. The knives listed in the catalogs were mainly a barlow style, a camp knife style, a fish knife, and a stockman style three blade, with the third blade being a stamped steel awl. I can't find a Hawkbill pattern in the catalogs, but a lot of times Sears did not list every single item. I agree though, the OP hawkbill is more than likely produced by Colonial.

Thank you so much for your fantastic responses. Very educational for me.

I am reviving this old thread to show this 3 and 1/2" jack which only has the marking "High Carbon Steel USA" on the master blade. I bought it for a buck at the fleamarket to rehandle and make into a custom EDC. As it is not a shell handle, is it still probably a Sears knife but made by Camillus? It has the black composition handles that are shrinking like you see on the older Camillus knives.

Now that I have the knife apart, I can offer a couple more pictures of the construction used. It has 4 prongs stamped into the brass liners that were forced into the black composition handle material to hold them on. Did Camillus ever use this method after they quit pinning the covers on but before they glued them on?
The only markings on the knife.

OLDE CUTLER wrote: ↑Sat Mar 11, 2023 3:16 pm Now that I have the knife apart, I can offer a couple more pictures of the construction used. It has 4 prongs stamped into the brass liners that were forced into the black composition handle material to hold them on. Did Camillus ever use this method after they quit pinning the covers on but before they glued them on?

IMG_5114.JPG
The only markings on the knife.
IMG_5115.JPG

OC . Camillus did use the prong method before WW2 on some of there knives . Have an old swell center or 2 and a few other 4 line/ Sword brand knives that have that method of installing the handles on . Will include this small group shot of 1940 s or older knives and you can see it was fairly common . This seems to have been on only the composite type handles . Notice the Streamline that I removed the bad Celluloid handles . U can see the prongs . Somewhere in the Camillus pages Dale has a great write up about this topic also .
So answering your question directly. Yes they did and it was on and off over the years .

I just removed a gassed out scale from a Camillus, KENT jack knife and it has the 4 prongs punched out of the liner. The shield was also "pronged" on. It doesn't look like it would be very strong but I really had to pry hard to remove the scale and especially the shield, J.O'.

Ridgegrass wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 1:38 pm I just removed a gassed out scale from a Camillus, KENT jack knife and it has the 4 prongs punched out of the liner. The shield was also "pronged" on. It doesn't look like it would be very strong but I really had to pry hard to remove the scale and especially the shield, J.O'.

I had to pry them off mine with a screwdriver as well. They must have heated the liners and/or the handle material before installing?

I was thinking the exact same thing, trying to figure out how they made them stick, had to be some kind oh heat involved. I wont pull the pile side unless it gets really gassed. J.O'.