Congressional Appeal

[rddp]

Show off your Congress pattern favorites !

 

[Arathol]

 

[Old Biker]

O.B.

 

[Will Power]

My favourite uses the frame but is a Congress Jack. Forum Knife 2013.

 

[RickHuf]

Congress is the best!

Awesome Schrade Cut Co


IXL Wostenholm


H.S.B. (unknown maker)


Case from last year's vault release



Boker USA 6006 and a recent Boker "assembled in Germany"

 

[JW225]

A couple from Dave Shirley…

 

[Peregrin]

A Rick Menefee Half Congress.

Here's a Kious-Schrade collaboration they call a Reverse Congress.

 

[rddp]

You have some real beauties there. Love that Bulldog !

 

[Chui]

........am not very knowledgable at all on these types, but hopefully these fit in...?

 

[dantzk8]

https://imgur.com/a/JU5GJ76

Dan.

 

[JW225]

My favourite uses the Congress frame but is an Irish Jack. Forum Knife 2013.

FWIW, Levine categorizes this exact pattern as a Congress Jack...

Some other info provided by Levine as to "Congress Knives" generally: It appears that the congress knife appeared on the scene some time in the first third of the 19th Century. It was one of the earliest patterns created specifically for the American market. Apparently, large congress knives were often called "tobacco knives" because they were favored for carving bite-sized chews from plugs of chewing tobacco. Lastly, not only is the congress a purely American pattern, for most of its history it was a purely southern pattern. English firms and the big northeastern cutlery manufacturers such as Remington and New York Knife Company made congress knives in large numbers, but they mainly distributed them through wholesalers in the Southeast. (Levine's 4th ed., p. 242)

 

[Will Power]

@JW225 My mistake, thanks for the correction, will edit my original. Levine is right and even GEC agrees with him on this one The tube I was convinced said Irish Jack, seems not....

 

[JW225]

@JW225 My mistake, thanks for the correction, will edit my original. Levine is right and even GEC agrees with him on this one The tube I was convinced said Irish Jack, seems not....

Hi, Will -- just to be clear, I wasn't trying to correct you, just thought it would be interesting to add Levine's take to the mix.

 

[yablanowitz]

And for what it's worth, the term Irish Jack was kicked around a lot that year. Several folks called a two-blade congress with both blades on the same end an Irish Jack.

And to stay on topic, most of mine.

 

[Will Power]

Not at all, I don't mind being corrected when I'm wrong and you are very polite about it. It's interesting in the context of GEC producing knives with idiosyncratic names, the latest example being their not Barlow- alleged long bolster Jack What next? Everything that does not have Barlow bolster could be short bolster or even tip bolsters? Manufacturers name as they like, knife fanciers-as Levine calls us- try to have an agreed set of pattern names.