A Camillus fixed blade I hadn't seen before. Pattern and approximate date?

[Codger_64]

I like exploring the old patterns made by Camillus and the knives they imported for sale here. I just bought a fixed blade that I have never seen an example of before.

Previously I have bought their Sportsman pattern, eventually acumulating three of them. Simple plain flat ground blades, guardless construction, full tang with pinned rosewood handle covers. These were well made, full polish and branded by Camillus for sale to F. W. Woolworths as low price point hunting knives.

Recently I acquired a knife similar in ways to the first, earlier knife, but it is not a hunting knife. It is a hawkbill utility knife with upscale features over it's sibling sportsman pattern. The tang marking is unmistakably similar, but the utility knife has jigged (wood? bone?) handle covers attached to the full tang with domed brass rivets instead of brass pins.

The knife is not yet in hand so I cannot say definately what the handle material is, other than what can be seen in the auction pictures. At first I thought it was jigged bone but after looking closely, I am thinking it may be stamped impressed wood? Anyway, the tang mark similarities between the plain-jane Kent Sportsman and the utility knife suggest to me that they were made and sold to Woolworths during the same timeframe. Mid 1930's?

 

[zzyzzogeton]

Codger - going back to one of your posts back in 2008 about these knives,

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/585000-More-on-the-Kent-branded-Sportsman-knives

you mentioned "jigged plastic" handles. Could this be an example of those? It will be interesting to see when you get it. I think I've tried to get one of the Sportsman's on fleabay 3-4x and I keep missing out.. You sniping them off me??

Since this is a utility knive, and it looks a lot like various linoleum knives I've used over the years, the jimping was probably designed to provide a better grip when pull-cutting through such "hard to cut" materials.

 

[Codger_64]

If you read that thread, you saw when I acquired my sportsman knives, the last one three years ago. I don't need a set of six. In fact, one of my three is shipping out to a friend tomorrow.

Hawkbill utility knives are pretty well a standard all-around pattern. Sometimes called pruners for their use in agriculture/gardening. Used to score drywall, shingles and lineoleum. I have one here on my desk that is a lockback sold by Klein tools to electricians, marked made in Sheffield England. Most rigid pruner/utility knives I have seen have a rounded tool handle, not a flat full tang cutlery handle. I'll post the material of the covers when it arrives.

 

[zzyzzogeton]

If you read that thread, you saw when I acquired my sportsman knives, the last one three years ago. I don't need a set of six. In fact, one of my three is shipping out to a friend tomorrow.

Hawkbill utility knives are pretty well a standard all-around pattern. Sometimes called pruners for their use in agriculture/gardening. Used to score drywall, shingles and lineoleum. I have one here on my desk that is a lockback sold by Klein tools to electricians, marked made in Sheffield England. Most rigid pruner/utility knives I have seen have a rounded tool handle, not a flat full tang cutlery handle. I'll post the material of the covers when it arrives.

Just pulling your chain on the sniping. Every shingle/linoleum knife I have ever owned/used has had the "standard" round "figure 8" profile handle. But then I've only used them since the early 70s. Looking forward for updates. I love learning about older knives and the various stories behind them.

 

[acourvil]

It looks like jigged wood to me, both from the texture and the pattern of the jigging (the jigging in wood was more regular and symmetrical). But Camillus used both bone and wood for similar handles. Here's one with bone from around that same time frame; they did the same knife using jigged wood (don't have a pic handy)

1930s sounds like a good guess to me based on the handle style. The one in the picture is from the early 40s, but I believe the same style was around in the 30s as well (but I don't have a real reference for that). Looks like it would be a good choice for cutting linoleum.

 

[MerryMadMonk]

Here's an example with jigged wood.

 

[Codger_64]

Thanks. References, Camillus and jobber catalog illustrations of earlier Camillus fixed blades are woefully rare it seems. Perhaps I have just not found the right jobber catalogs yet. It helps seeing the Camillus branded knives here. I rarely see them come to market as well. In fact, I see more Kent branded from that pre-WWII era than I do Camillus.

 

[Codger_64]

The hawkbill utility knife arrived today and it is definately handled in wood. The "jigging" looks to be pressed in with a roller die. And... while it doesn' show well in the pictures from the auction, the 2 3/4" blade is chromed. It is dull and scratched, but seemingly not for use. Odd for a knife intended for hard utility cutting tasks. O.A.L. of the knife is 6 1/2", the handle covers being almost exactly the same length as the Sportsman and quite nearly the same taper and contour. If the chrome plating means anything to the timeline, it suggests a manufacture closer to the c. 1939 Sportsman Krome Plate than to the earlier Sportsman.

The hunt for more patterns continues. Thanks again for the contributions gents. And please let me know if you find any prewar Camillus catalog or jobber catalog resources showing fixed blades, hunting or utility.

 

[sac troop]

Chroming user knives was not uncommon pre-WW2. It was the most common approach to making the blade corrosion resistant. While there are examples of Stainless Steel knives back then I suspect the makeup of the SS wasn't that good for knife performance. There are some exceptions but I kind of suspect it was tough to get a good temper in the SS. Case was using chrome plating on some of their knife patterns at least as far back as the early 30's. I imagine that Camillus would have subcontracted the plating to a specialty shop.

Does anyone know if the "Kent knives" are the first examples of fixed blade knives made by Camillus?

 

[Codger_64]

Camillus was using stainless for a line of pocket knives as early as 1924. In fact, they used the mark "Stainless Cutlery Co., N.Y. U.S.A. on the line for Hibbard, Spencer & Bartlett, a hardware jobber.

A page from the 1927 HS&B catalog.