Best Selling / Most Popular Traditional Of All Time?

some of these companies are so well known theyve practically been folded into the lexicon, but if its by sheer sales number...
 
A little casual googling tells me that Victorinox sells between 10 - 26 million a year (I'm inclined to the higher end of that range, because it comes from a few business sites). Opinel is just under 10 million, Case is about 1 million. There are probably factories in China that exceed those numbers of knives (including both modern and traditional), but it would be hard to tell because they are marketed and sold under so many different brand names. So I'm inclined to say the traditional popularity prize should go to Victorinox.
 
I would be curious to know how how many knives (if any) Opinel sells in France’s former colonies around the world. Seems like a good market for a high quality but inexpensive tool, with many millions of potential customers.
 
I would say that in northern manitoba it would be schrade/old timer,case never came up our way unless someone brought one back from a holiday,every stop from winnipeg to churchill had a schrade display,they must of had a reallyy good sales rep,Saks were more a novelty carry.but then I hung with the bush crowd,I remember the knife box at my buddies moose camp was full with schrade/old timer knives americans left as a 📦
 
I am betting that the most sold of all time is probably the Victorinox classic.
Next would be the cheap knockoffs companies give away as free promo's.
 
I'm willing to bet that the old imperial Barlow would be high on the list of best selling traditional

Cheap, available everywhere and reliable enough.

I wonder how many they made over the years.


That or the Camillus electrician knife. Those things were (are) everywhere.
 
afishhunter said:
US sales only?
Before 2004, my guess would be Imperial-Schrade, to include the various family brands of Hammer Brand, Ulster and Camillus.

Case has been around for a long time. However, growing up on the west side of the Mississippi River, I never heard of them. "Case" was a tractor and farm implement company. I'm not sure if they also made things like a backhoe.
There were no Case knives at our hardware, sporting goods, or Farm & Fleet stores. Victorinox and Wenger, Opinel, the various Imperial Schrade brands, Western, (folders and fixed blades) Utica, Colonial, Buck, a few Solingen, and Sheffield brands, some now defunct USA brands like CATT and Robeson, a couple "no names" (probably made by Imperial, Ulster, Colonial, and whatever Japanese companies who were exporting at the time.) Yes. We had those.

Honestly, I don't believe Case Cutlery marketed their wares west of the Mississippi River, until the mid-late 1980's to early 1990's.
I don't recall any ads for them in my dad's 'Field and Stream', 'Outdoor Life', or his other such magazines, nor in my 'Boy's Life' Scouting magazine, in the 1960's and 1970's, nor in his 'Gun Digest's' during that time frame, for that matter.
I'm SURE both WR and Sons put ads in those magazines, and the annual 'Gun Digest', just not in the ones distributed on the west side of the river.
Even after I relocated to Smoggy Southern California after High School, I did not see any Case knives for sale.

As far as hunting knives is concerned, for several decades the Western L/F/W66 "owned" the deer hunting woods and fields in North America, possibly for the first half decade after the venerable Buck 110 was introduced.
(Let's be honest, a lot of 110's since they hit the market have never gone hunting or camping - even until today.) (Yes, I am aware many went to war, even after Vietnam.) They were a heavy-duty work knife for I'd guess the majority of owners. I know I left my 110 (and Old Timer 7OT) home in favor of my Western L66 when I went hunting, back when I was in high school and college.
I didn't take my 110 (or Old Timer 7OT) camping or hunting until 1995, when I was on a 2 year ... let's call it a "sabbatical" ... from work, (I was hiding from The Junior Boys gang, located in Wichita, KS) in Southwest Missouri. (Long story.)

Post 2004? Buck would be my guess, due to the 110 and 119.
Click to expand...

Loved the history presented here. I realize this is an older post, but have you ever told the story of the ‘two year sabbatical’ Steve?
 
RickHuf said:
I'm willing to bet that the old imperial Barlow would be high on the list of best selling traditional

Cheap, available everywhere and reliable enough.

I wonder how many they made over the years.


That or the Camillus electrician knife. Those things were (are) everywhere.
Click to expand...
The Camillus, and the Utica that was rebranded by Klein tools and sold just as many if not more.
I would bet that the most selling in the US was probably once the Bassett TRIM trio.
A sheeps foot cuticle blade, nail file, and cap lifter / driver.
Sold at checkout counters everywhere along with the Bassett TRIM nail clippers, but it may not really count much as a traditional pocket knife because it's kind of barely a knife.
 
Hickory n steel said:
The Camillus, and the Utica that was rebranded by Klein tools and sold just as many if not more.
I would bet that the most selling in the US was probably once the Bassett TRIM trio.
A sheeps foot cuticle blade, nail file, and cap lifter / driver.
Sold at checkout counters everywhere along with the Bassett TRIM nail clippers, but it may not really count much as a traditional pocket knife because it's kind of barely a knife.
Click to expand...
Haha I had to look that up and as soon as I saw it, Yeah that thing was in every bag, car, junk drawer, keychain and pocket in the US.
 
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