Antique Cattaraugus Knives and Company History

Status
Not open for further replies.
Quite the clowder of Catts you have Primble Primble very nice :thumbsup::thumbsup:
Here are a few of mine
gySrEZ2.jpg

mHVWysT.jpg

9odZuqV.jpg
 
Cattaraugus Walnut handled kitchen slicing knife :


I was excited to add this old Cattaraugus kitchen knife to my Catt collection. It was something different from all my Catt folders. I washed it up in the kitchen sink repeatedly until it was squeaky clean and added 5 coats of Linseed oil to the walnut handles over the next five days. It now resides in a knife block on my kitchen counter, resuming it's duty as a kitchen slicer, and not a part of my folder collection. As is apparent at looking at the knife, it has seen it's share of use as a food preparation knife. I loved the dancing Indians stamped into the blade, as can be seen above. I love the swedge work on the blade, a prominent characteristic of most Cattaraugus knives. It sharpens up fast and does a fine job on kitchen chores. I get a nostalgic feeling from using it to do my food prep on the cutting board, as was intended. I wonder what caused the patterns in the blade on both sides. It is etched with patterns far below the surface. I would love to know what caused those patterns as I can think of another knife or two that might benefit from that characteristic. The walnut handles are in fine condition and have a nice patina to both sides. I doubt it has much historical value and I don't have much invested in it, but, there is just something different about using an old knife like this to perform your daily work. Overall length is 12 inches - blade length is 7.5 inches.


For as much as we know about the history of these old knives, there is much more that we will never know.
 
Last edited:
So, in 1901 JBF Champlin had a booth at the Pan American Expo in Buffalo NY 1901. In that expo he had an unbelievable group of knives. This whittler is one of them. If you can find a copy of a pocket knives price guide dated 1979 by James Parker and Bruce Voyles you can see the write up and pictures of the pearl knives. Pages 203-210 has the pictures of the knives; page 205 has this whittler shown. There were also the same knives made in, what many believed, Ivory covers. Years later it was determined that those knives were covered in smooth bone. I have never seen any of them but wish I could find at least a few. Attached is a picture showing the other Pearls I have from the expo and some advertising items that were give aways.

Also pictured are the large carving pieces that were displayed at the expo. I was able to find where most of them were and get them all together for a picture. Some are in the American Cutlery Museum and others are in private collections. I had 4 sets of the carvers and just bought 2 more sets and the large wooden handles butcher knife shown. I had been trying to buy them for a very long time. They were owned by the grandson of the last President of Cattaraugus Cutlery.

He also sent me a roll of Cattaraugus and Case knives that belonged to his father, I will be getting them soon and will post pictures of them. Wish I could keep them all but am not sure about that. IMG_0776.jpgPanAm1.jpeg
 
Mind boggling Mike, what a great collection! That whittler is something else, and the toenail and jack are right up there too. Geez, how often do you see a pristine pearl toenail? NEVER! 😲 :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Eric
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top