All About Pocket Knives

It appears someone tried to find info on Pathfinder knives before and the only answers were Buck and Linder. I doubt either one made this knife and the internet came up empty except for these two companies. Does anyone have anything to add or have a Pathfinder(only marking on entire knife) that had a leather washer type handle and a fiber guard and a pretty common looking birds head pummel. It'll look a little prettier when I put a handle on it.____Dave

Dave, Goins says it was a mark used by Adolph Kastor and Brothers around 1910.

Eric

PS - After a few more folks posted including Gene ( you are a living knife reference book! ), I see that the Kastor knives were nothing like Dave's knife, so the Kastor reference I mentioned above doesn't apply.

Also, after going further in Goins he mentions that the Kastor Pathfinders would have had a pile side stamp that reads "A.W. WADSWORTH AND SON, GERMANY".

That knife is way newer than 1910. I do not believe the Goins' reference refers to this knife at all. I have a hunting knife not like this one with "Pathfinder" etched on the blade, definitely a post-war knife, I think the term was used by more than one company. I don't know who made the OP knife though. That style of pommel was first used by Western but Western pommels have two pins holding them on. Cardinal Cutlery as well as Kinfolks/Robeson used similar pommels. Neither the Case nor Queen pommels had quite that shape, and KA-BAR never used that style of pommel.

Thanks Eric. I just got home (dragging) last night from Michigan and was about to dig through my research books in the next few days to see if I could find something. Nothing close showed up on line and that's as far as I got. Now I can concentrate on cleaning and a new handle. Aw nuts, while I was typing to you I see Gunsil just messed up all our progress so far with facts. Not being a politician, facts matter. I knew it wasn't a KA-BAR and the fiber guard pretty much ruled out many of the common makers that used that pummel and leather or wood sleeves for handles. I guess I'll keep digging. Thank you both for your input.____Dave

I know Dave Canterbury runs a bushcraft school called Pathfinder.
https://www.selfrelianceoutfitters.com/ ... nstructors

Reasonably sure the knife is a Weske product. They did use the Pathfinder name and the plastic type guard is typical of their fixed blades.

Very good point Wayne! But Weske usually used a zinc pommel rather than aluminum. Zinc pommels are usually grey in color like PAL RH 35 knives and Weskes but if the pommel has been cleaned up it may be zinc which looks a little like aluminum when polished.. Kinfolks did use the bakelite guards also for a while, mostly during the war years and they were very prolific makers of contract knives for many other firms.

btrwtr wrote: ↑Mon Aug 30, 2021 1:02 pm Reasonably sure the knife is a Weske product. They did use the Pathfinder name and the plastic type guard is typical of their fixed blades.

Thanks Wayne. The thought had crossed my mind and I have a few Weske's stashed somewhere in my safe. I'll have to do some digging and see if any similarities show up. I don't know much of anything about Weske or even if they actually made knives or got theirs from someone else. I didn't figure they were big enough to make contract knives, but maybe they ordered them with several stampings. Lots of speculation on my part.____Dave

Weske did make contract knives, I have seen a few. They also made all the Sanssouci DR knives that look like military knives, they made those from surplus blades and parts from major WW2 suppliers such as KA-BAR and Camillus. Weske also used a lot of solid celluloid handles on their smaller hunting knives which sometimes disintegrate.

You've pretty well gotten me convinced, and the celluloid makes sense too because of the pitting on the blade without a ton of blade loss. This is probably way more attention than this little relic deserves but for me the hunt, tinkering and research is much of the fun of collecting and this one had me hitting dead ends on the research end. Thanks for your help. ____Dave