Anyone collect Older Prod Fixed

[Fort Henry Custom Knives]

Hey Gang, just wondering if anyone here collects older Production Fixed Blades??

I realize that the demand is much lower for older Fixed (in comparison to older Slipjoints) but I am interested in these and want to learn more about them. For those that know;

- What is the best book for Identifying old Fixed Blade knife Markings, Knife Patterns and learning more about the Companies? (I have Levines IV and that is a big help).

Anyone have a particular Brand they collect? Which one and Why that Brand?


Thanks in advance.

 

[Codger_64]

Lower demand for older production fixed blades is a good thing. Yes, I collect them but opportunistically, not aggresively. Besides the few basic knife guide books, older catalogs and magazine ads are good sources for information on them. A particular brand? I suppose I concentrate more on the offerings by Schrade and the predecessors Schrade Walden and Schrade Cut Co. But that leads me to comparing them with other brandings of fixed blades like Marbles, Remington, etc. A lot of info on older fixed blades has been posted here in this forum.

Codger

 

[Fort Henry Custom Knives]

Codger - I agree with you, lower demand allows folks like us to get a few (new to us) pieces without breaking the bank. Also, for someone like me it makes the learning curve a lot easier, I can afford to purchase a knife to learn more about it.

 

[Codger_64]

And many of the people who collect the older fixed blades (1899-1950's) are picky about looking for factory fresh examples. But they don't dare use them, so they never experience the pleasure of cutting up a deer with a 1915 Marbles, 1928 Western States, or a 1939 Camillus, or a 1932 Remington. Those old carbon steel blades work as well today as they did for our fathers and grandfathers. Even if the "style" of the patterns has fallen out of favor and the manufacturer is no more. I would much rather have ten $40 examples of older hunting knives than one $400 example that I was afraid to get a fingerprint on. But that is just me.

Codger

 

[Amos Iron Wolf]

As mentioned in another recent thread, I loosely collect/gather the old Sportsman pattern knives. Great fun, love the look and the stories behind them. Stories that I never knew until I just up and bought one off the bay for $9.99. It has shadows of the lines of the Sheffield and cowboy bowies, which I can't afford, nor can I afford to take the chance of paying much for since I don't know enough about them to safely buy them. For ten bucks I can take a chance, have a neat knife, and enjoy learning some things about them.

On a wild hair I bought the Cattaraugus fixed blade below. It is small and thin, like the Finn types. However, it has a hard rubber handle. The sheath is left handed. Just from researching this inexpensive knife I learned about the use of hard rubber on handles back then, about knives commonly being worn on the left hip many years ago, and about early chroming of blades in an attempt to fight the rust issues. That is a heck of a lot of entertainment and pleasure from a pretty inexpensive knife purchase. That little fixed blade is also one extreme cutting blade. It takes a wicked edge and being relatively thin, it cuts insanely well, be it leather, plastic, rope, whatever.

I dare say all these years later, this little knife could ride easy on a belt and do darn near anything you wanted. It is like those little Finn bird & Trout types those old boys carried in Jackknife's neck of the woods when he was kid. That and a simple, small pocket knife would handle 99% of you cutting needs. An axe or small hatchet would take care of the rest.

Like Codger, I'm more of an opportunist. I do have a sweet spot for the Sportsman types as I mentioned, but even then I'm usually cheap. Lately, I may go for a less than ideal knife of that type if it has a nice sheath mostly to get the sheath for maybe a better specimen I have that has a junky sheath, or none at all.

Enjoy and show us what you pick up from time to time.

 

[scale6]

I have about 12 different styles of Cattaraugus kitchen knives, the ones I have are (I think) chrome plated with a high carbon steel in the center. The idea was to have slick sides, with a high carbon edge this was before stainless steel was so popular. They stay sharp and cut great! The only hold back is they have small hard rubber handles. I need to put a large handle on one and then see how it works. I'll add that to the list of things I need to do.