Can Anyone Identify This Camillus Dog Leg Jack

J

jerryd6818

Joined
Dec 28, 2006
Messages
219
Can anyone put a model number to this Camillus long-line Dog Leg Jack. The back of the main blade is not stamped with a model number. With black synthetic handles, it's 2-15/16" closed and has half-stops on both blades. I can't find it in any of the catalogs I have access to. Someone suggested 53 but that's an awfully high number for a two blade Jack. All I've ever seen have been numbered 1x, 2x or 3x. You have my appreciation for any help you may provide.


image.php
 
This is a reasonably specialized question. Going to move this thread to the Camillus Collector's Forum. It is not quite as active as this forum, but for specialized Camillus questions, it is the place to go
 
Vit, it's a pain for me to post pictures on this forum. As stated in the OP, it's just the standard long-line stamp that's generally accepted as being for the years 1960-1976. You've seen it a thousand times. If you really feel a need to see the tang stamp, send me a PM at the other place I post the most.

Camillus
(long line)
New York
U.S.A.
 
Jerry, what is your opinion, the main blade was originally a spear-point or grind off?
Maybe this knife has been rebladed?
 
Original spear blade with blade loss. It looks like the pen secondary blade has about the same amount of loss. I don't think the knife has ever been apart but I've been wrong before.
 
jerryd6818 said:
Vit, it's a pain for me to post pictures on this forum. As stated in the OP, it's just the standard long-line stamp that's generally accepted as being for the years 1960-1976. You've seen it a thousand times. If you really feel a need to see the tang stamp, send me a PM at the other place I post the most.

Camillus
(long line)
New York
U.S.A.
Click to expand...

So I have to ask why is it generally accepted that the long line tang stamp, ( I assume this means the underlined CAMILLUS goes from C to S), starts in 1960, when that tang stamp is illustrated in the Camillus 1954 catalog?

Please don't take this in anyway as a criticism. I'm really posing this more as a question to the general forum.
 
I didn't take it as criticism. It is a perfectly valid question and one I've asked myself many times.

The "short line" stamp gets a lot of support for 1946-1950
The "long line" stamp is generally accepted as 1960-1976
The "italic" stamp is run up the flag pole as 197x-198x
And the double line stamp is claimed to be 1989-close of business

Hey boys and girls. What about the no line stamp?

Camillus
New York
U.S.A.

To me, that's what looks like is in the 1954 catalog. Something had to fill the time between 1950 and 1960.
It's my opinion that each stamp ran longer (front end and ending date) than the dates that get bandied about.
Tom Williams said more than once (and I'm paraphrasing here) "It's a fools errand to try and date a Camillus knife by the tang stamp."

The stamp will only get you within a decade or so.:p
 
Yes, trying to specifically date a knife by it's tang stamp quickly becomes problematic. This is a subject that I can easily start to rant on, so I'm going to try and avoid that.
You had to bring up the three line CAMILLUS tang stamp with no underline didn't you? :) For years I've excepted the prevailing opinion that it is post WW2, based on the prevailing general opinion. I've since changed my mind. Although I'll admit that the evidence to the contrary is short of providing absolute provence, I find it compelling enough.

IMHO, This tang stamp;
CAMILLUS
NEW YORK
U.S.A.
exists at least by late 1944. While I can't take any credit for any of that research, I find the arguments presented by several individuals who have very compelling.
I believe this is one of those things that we as collectors have to deal with. There never seems to be enough existing documentation to paint a complete picture.

Since I tend to focus my attention on U.S. military knives mostly WW2 and Vietnam and some in between, I don't think I'd be much help with your specific knife. Still the subject of tang stamps comes up all over the place.
 
Some are "dateable" to shorter time frames. One such is the venerable 4 line stamp,

CAMILLUS
CUTLERY CO.
CAMILLUS, NY
USA

centered on the ricasso on certain knives made during the WW2 era.

I've also seen a VERY FEW Camillus knives that had a year stamped on the tang (one was a folding rope knife with marlin spike dated 1915).

And then there is the most specific dating I know of, the JPSKs with month and year on the pommel.
 
The tang stamps are an interesting topic for conversation but it's not getting my Jack identified. :culpability:
 
I have searched, without finding a single dogleg jack listed for sale, through the following catalogs and pamphlets::
1946
1948
1951
1954
1955
1957
1965
1972
1973-74
1975-76
1977 pamphlet
1978
1978 pamphlet
1979
1982 pamphlet
1984
1988 pamphlet
1990
1991 Anniversary Flyer
1992
1993
1994
1996

I started finding references to the dogleg jack as a knife style starting in the 1948 catalog.

The pony jacks (models 21 and 22) are the closest in closed sized to the OP knife, but the 21 and 22 are always depicted with a clip blade.

All line drawings of the dogleg, and only of the dogleg, show the spear/pen combo.

I found a couple of references to the Camillus dogleg jack, both stating that they had concluded that the knives were made in the 1960s based SOLELY on the stamp.

I'm starting to lean towards the conclusion that the dogleg had a VERY short production run during the 60s. If they were ever published in a Camillus catalog or pamphlet, it was in one of the years 1960 - 1964 and 1966 - 1969.

Unless someone comes up with one of these "ghost" catalogs or Phil Gibbs has some info tucked away, the only way to track it down would be to go through old magazine archives of outdoors magazines at a major university's library.

The other possibility would be to find out what happened to Tom William's stash of old Camillus "S-cards" after he passed away and search through those.
 
OP has requested that this be moved to General Forum.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top