All About Pocket Knives

Hi All, the Safety Hunting knife design is fairly unique however am just wondering if any other manufactures emulated the design. I'm not referring to fakes here. As was the case for Bowie style knives, and other popular styles, many manufactures took up style ideas and manufactured their own versions. Curious.

Karin Piko wrote: ↑Thu Aug 14, 2025 6:04 am Hi All, the Safety Hunting knife design is fairly unique however am just wondering if any other manufactures emulated the design. I'm not referring to fakes here. As was the case for Bowie style knives, and other popular styles, many manufactures took up style ideas and manufactured their own versions. Curious.

Welcome to the forum, Karin


A couple of companies (that I know of) made knives similar to the Marbles safety knife. Parker made one at one time. Right now, you can buy a very nice version at Smoky Mountain Knife Works. The Marbles company that made the original knife is long gone, but the name and the design endure. Here is a link:
https://smkw.com/marbles-safety-folder- ... one-handle

And here is a link to some photos and info about that knife and others:
https://www.allaboutpocketknives.com/kn ... es#p664890

Thanks heaps for the response. I'll go and check out the info you've noted. Cheers

I believe Jim Parker was the first to copy the design, maybe in the 1970s and 1980s. The Chinese current Marble's reproductions are very easy to find, like Mel posted above.

I can recall selling many of the Japanese Parker knives of this design when I was selling knives at gunshows back in the early 1980s. They were well made with nice bone handle material. Wish I would have kept one for myself.

They made a lot of knives in this style in India, often with spurious Joseph Rodgers marks on them. Most are considered post WW2 knives made up into the 1960s.

SMKW is currenty selling three versions of their Chinese Safety Folder, Marbles Brown Bone Stag, Rough Ryder Pandora Swirl which is wood burl and blue acrilic, and the least expensive, Marbles Imitation Stag. In the recent past SMKW also sold Marbles Black Bone Stag Safety Folders. All have 440A stainless blades. Before Trump's tariffs Marbles Safety Folders with plastic Imation Stag were marked down to $16 and Brown Bone Stag was about $18 while on sale.

Interesting that Rough Ryder is getting in on this action.

Here's more in the Marble's forum- https://www.allaboutpocketknives.com/kn ... er#p962583

Yesterday I saw a fellow AAPK member has a Dunathan's book on Marble's knives and outdoor gear for sale, a great reference book to have if you're into collecting Marble's items.

Yeah, I've seen some posts / pictures of some very poor Marbles copies with the JR crudely stamped. I was thinking that surely there would have been some reputable manufactures back in the day (not looking for modern examples) that saw the design and issued their own maybe with slight variations from the Marbles version. Will keep researching. Cheers.