All About Pocket Knives

Ran across these pictures of my Keen Kutters and thought they might be interesting:

Sweet!!

That's a lot of beautiful pearl and bone!

My only Keen Kutter is a small, flat lockback with brass sides. your bone and pearl put it to shame.

That is an impressive collection. I know someone who has a collection of everything Keen Kutter he is trying to sell to me for years. They had their name on so many items, axes, hatchets, kitchen utensils and so many things it was hard to take it all in. It’s a bit nostalgic seeing that brand name on anything, especially knives.

Amazing Collection!!

WOW!!! Do you have every pattern? One of my reference books, maybe Sargent's, has a page about a collector who has KK displays with just about every pattern.

Impressive and interesting. Thanks for sharing. I admire your focus and knives.

Thanks for the comments everyone, as far as having every pattern, not close, I've added quite a few since these pictures were taken but that's still only a fraction of those made. The Keen Kutter collection in Sargent's has about 450 knives, I'm not there yet, but I'm working on it.

msteele6 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 3:25 am Ran across these pictures of my Keen Kutters and thought they might be interesting:

Fantastic collection!!!

Those pics really meed to be shown in this thread as well...perfect fit.

https://www.allaboutpocketknives.com/kn ... &start=875

Wow!!! That is outstanding. I thought I had a lot of knives. It must have taken you years or even decades to put that together. I tip my hat to you Sir.


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Mike

WOW! Impressive!

Great collection! Many of them look like they could just as well be Winchesters.

That’s a very impressive collection you’ve put together. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Wonderful collection; absolutely impressive. Do you happen to know how many and which cutleries made their knives?

Spectacular collection msteele6!!

Thanks for the comments everyone. I really need to organize and take a picture of the ones I've gotten since these pictures were taken, it's been a few years. I've been collecting them for over 20 years. Most are Winchester (Walden) made, but a substantial number are Camillus with a few Schrades thrown in. As far as the patterns, I don't even have an example of a knife from every page of Sellens book on Keen Kutters let alone every pattern, even at that I have almost 400 now, not sure how many I had when I took these pictures, probably about 250.

Would love to see updated pictures of your whole collection. I thought I was doing OK with about 75 Keen Kutters.
I just did a quick count and there are over 1,000 knives pictured in Sellens. That is a lot of different pattern numbers, but, there are a lot that are basically the same pattern with a slight differences.
So, very difficult to determine exactly how many distinctly different patterns?

All early knives were Walden made.Do you have any farmers jacks? I’ve seen two, one sold on eBay didn't have a pruning blade, the other is a rough example I have.

Great focus by the way, I understand.

Congratulations on your focused collection from a prolific name and thank you for sharing your images - please keep us updated as the collection grows!

Very impressive collection. Thank you for sharing it here and congratulations for amassing it.

Ken

Danno, I just checked Sellens' and if my count is right (I estimated the number from the list of pattern numbers in the index) he lists around 1,400 different patterns, however, there are quite a few Camillus made patterns during the Shapleigh era that are not in Sellens so who knows how many were made. I need to sort out all of the knives so I can get a new picture. WLF, no, I don't have a KK farmers jack.

Sharpnshinyknives wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 11:51 am That is an impressive collection. I know someone who has a collection of everything Keen Kutter he is trying to sell to me for years. They had their name on so many items, axes, hatchets, kitchen utensils and so many things it was hard to take it all in. It’s a bit nostalgic seeing that brand name on anything, especially knives.

So true Mark, I have an old KK waffle iron. I even saw a picture of a KK riding lawn mower.

edge213 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 30, 2025 8:51 pm

Sharpnshinyknives wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 11:51 am That is an impressive collection. I know someone who has a collection of everything Keen Kutter he is trying to sell to me for years. They had their name on so many items, axes, hatchets, kitchen utensils and so many things it was hard to take it all in. It’s a bit nostalgic seeing that brand name on anything, especially knives.

So true Mark, I have an old KK waffle iron. I even saw a picture of a KK riding lawn mower.

I’ve never seen a riding lawn mower with KK on it, but I think he even had a push mower that you had to push to get the blades to work, not sure I’m describing that correctly or not. We had one when I was a kid and I couldn’t believe how hard that thing was to push, what a work out those gave you.
He has gas cans, flour shifters, and some kitchen items I couldn’t tell you what they are. The most impressive part was the two very antique display cases he has. If I had the room for those, I would have bought them a long time ago.
I’ll have to see if I can find a picture of that riding lawn mower online somewhere. Thanks David.

Here's a great reference book for Keen Kutter collectibles. Not great for pocket knives like Sellens' book. But there are some lawn mowers and even a grinder's wheel. We have a KK kraut cutter at the farm, maybe a butter churn too.