1940's Imperial hunting knife.

R

Ron Garland

Joined
Feb 19, 2005
Messages
4
I hope someone here knowledgeable of Imperial Knife Company's earlier history can help with a question I have concerning a 9" sheath knife. The question is: Was Imperial Knife ever associated with Utica Cutlery?
The reason for the question is, I have a 9" hunting knife stamped with
"Imperial, Prov. R.I. USA" and an almost identical knife stamped with "Utica
Sportsman USA". I bought these knives off eBay because they reminded me of the type knife I used as a kid in the late 1940's. Of course, they only cost about $1.25 then, and that was about all we could afford, particularly since we lost or broke them.
After receiving the knives, I remembered it must have been the Imperial knife because of the grooving on the handles. And this grooving in the black plastic handles is the only difference between the two knives, excepting the
markings. The real surprise is the metal in the blades. The metal appears to have a high chromium content because the blades buff up to a mirror surface, even after all these years!
The two companies produced identical knives, so what was the relarionship?
Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. History is sure fading fast, isn't it?
Thanks again,
Ron G.
 
There are two possible explanations for the fact that the knives look identical....

One is, that knife companies that competed in the same markets often copied each other's designs.....so each company produced knives that appear to be identical because one copied the other's tooling.

It is also possible that one company outsourced some production to another....I never would have guessed that Imperial and Utica would have done this with each other since each company was a large manufacturer in its own right and they each made o lot of knives for other companies.

I did recently have a small penknife with fancy celluloid handles.....and it had the Imperial "IKCO" logo overstamped on the old "UTICA KNIFE AND RAZOR Co" logo on the main blade tang....the only evidence that I have ever seen of these two companies possibly producing knives for each other....so it IS possible.
 
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