All About Pocket Knives

Does anyone have a Western States dogs head knife or other contract dog you care to share a photo of?

Here's mine.

Scott

Great looking knife. Where did its name come from?

Jeepergeo wrote: ↑Sun Mar 10, 2024 2:24 am Great looking knife. Where did its name come from?

Take a good look at the shield ....

royal0014 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 10, 2024 10:36 am

Jeepergeo wrote: ↑Sun Mar 10, 2024 2:24 am Great looking knife. Where did its name come from?

Take a good look at the shield ....

Doh! Not sure how I missed that.

Looks like a very sturdy knife.

Bob

Nice knife

Harold

Jeepergeo wrote: ↑Sun Mar 10, 2024 2:24 am Great looking knife. Where did its name come from?

A Cutler by the name of H. N. Platts married into the Case family and owned a portion of the W. R. Case & Sons Cutlery Co. After may years of building knives he developed a lung disease from breathing too much grinding wheel dust. This led to the need for a climate change. In 1911 he and his wife Debbie Platts moved West to Colorado to start a new cutlery company. The company’s name was Western States Cutlery and Manufacturing Company. The reason he didn’t choose his last name for the new company was due to the Platts name being associated with other cutlery companies that existed at the time. He chose a name for his new company that represented the geographical location for the market in which he served, Western States. Early on the knives he sold were contract manufactured from other companies. I don’t think he made his own knives until the early 1920s. Union Cut Co. (soon to be KA-BAR) was one of the contract companies. Union/KA-BAR produced a few patterns of the dogs head shielded knives for Western States. I do not know when the use of contract companies ceased but there are a lot of similarities in materials between Western and KA-BAR coke patterns up into the mid 20’s on a few knives that I own.
This information is paraphrased form “The Knife Makers Who Went West” by Harvey Platts.
Sorry for the late reply. I wanted to find accurate information to your question.
Scott

stockman wrote: ↑Sun Mar 10, 2024 8:07 pm Nice knife

Harold

Thanks Harold. I'm hoping to find a standard coke pattern as well. I'm not positive but I believe a single blade hunter pattern was also contracted with the dogs shield.

Scott

I didn’t take a real good look or picture. I think this is a western states? Not a dog’s head. Would it be called a coke bottle and is it considered celluloid?
If someone could help me with this I would appreciate it.

LKSKNIVES wrote: ↑Tue Mar 12, 2024 12:56 am I didn’t take a real good look or picture. I think this is a western states? Not a dog’s head. Would it be called a coke bottle and is it considered celluloid?
If someone could help me with this I would appreciate it.IMG_4772.jpeg

Yes it’s a coke bottle pattern - shaped like a coke bottle. If it’s a Western States knife it should be stamped as such on the blade - on the opposite side from your picture. See here for how to tell if it’s celluloid viewtopic.php?p=1121826#p1121826

Ken

@Scootch, thanks for the explanation. It's interesting to learn about the lineage of the objects we desire to collect.