All About Pocket Knives

1. I have a very sharp knife, the tang of which merely reads "Patent No. 2,297,855 U.S.A.". Why didn't Utica put their name on it?
2. When the blade snaps shut, why doesn't it dull the edge?

I can’t answer your first question but slip joint folders usually (but not always) have a “Kick” to stop blade travel when closing. See Figure 2C.

Railsplitter wrote: ↑Mon Jun 02, 2025 5:04 pm I can’t answer your first question but slip joint folders usually (but not always) have a “Kick” to stop blade travel when closing. See Figure 2C.

Excellent.

occam wrote: ↑Mon Jun 02, 2025 4:55 pm 1. I.....

Question #1 "possibly" answered here.
viewtopic.php?t=85016

occam wrote: ↑Mon Jun 02, 2025 4:55 pm 1. I have a very sharp knife, the tang of which merely reads "Patent No. 2,297,855 U.S.A.". Why didn't Utica put their name on it?
2. When the blade snaps shut, why doesn't it dull the edge?

What many folks nowadays don’t think of is that knives were originally made and sold as tools. Many purchasers and users of such tools couldn’t care less who made them. Most manufacturers did stamp their names on the tools they made but some didn’t, especially on “lower end” items in their product lines. (Lower end doesn’t mean the steel used for blades was inferior - typically it means other aspects of the knife’s content, like bolsters, liners, handle covers, etc, and manufacturing processes were of less expensive nature. Applying the name was another manufacturing step, therefore an added cost. And they apparently did not think it an important enough detail to justify the added cost. (In more modern manufacturing the stamp is applied simultaneously in act of blanking, aka stamping out, the blades from sheet steel). Some of those knives were sold retail for under $1, often “impulse buys” from a stand-up display card on the counter in a gas station, for example. Before pay-at-the-pump, back in the day when people walked in to pay for their gas with cash.

Ken

Thanks to all!