waynorth
Dealer / Materials Provider
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2005
- Messages
- 33,518
No, this is not a thread about beautiful jigging, or exceptional knife handles. It's a little more basic than that.
And it's not about just the leg bones of cattle; it's about complete skeletons!!
Skeleton knives that is.
Great companies got their starts making these humble but useful objects. The founders of Queen Cutlery eventually un-horsed Schatt & Morgan (with the help of a recession) by making these knives by "moonlight" - another tale.
Michael Mirando and friends made them, eventually giving birth to the huge Imperial Knife Company.
Jewelers bought them, and added handle covers, some with precious metals, to add variety to their wares, and profits to their bank accounts. They often had blank banners so that names, greetings and wishes could be engraved on them, adding a few more bucks to the bottom line.
Pocket watches had a long history, so a bail was a common addition also, to facilitate addition to a watch chain. Probably helped sell a few chains - well you can see skeleton knives were an important product.
Most vest pockets, and many purses, were undoubtedly graced with one of these little embellished objects of art.
This 3" Empire-made skeleton, unused, gives us a nice example of some of the features that were needed to make a useful knife. This one was more of a picnic model, designed to open the beer or wine (who hasn't forgotten the church key or corkscrew??) It is ground mostly flush, to facilitate gluing on handles, with the exception of the hollow rivet, that needs the lip for security. Why a hollow rivet?? Likely to facilitate adding a bail, as you can easily pin it on right through the knife, at that location.
I suspect the majority of the embellished skeletons were sold sporting some form of manicuring capability, at least a file, and sometimes a pair of scissors.
I've posted a couple of fleshed out
)) skeletons with nail files as examples. Interesting to note, the blank for engraving is on the pile side of the Schrade. A traditional cutler would place it on the mark side, but Jewelry is a different trade, so the custom did not translate.
The Hayward has one on each side, for longer messages (or names).
So post your skeleton/fob/whatever knives, so we can see how various jewelers/embellishers finished them.
And it's not about just the leg bones of cattle; it's about complete skeletons!!
Skeleton knives that is.
Great companies got their starts making these humble but useful objects. The founders of Queen Cutlery eventually un-horsed Schatt & Morgan (with the help of a recession) by making these knives by "moonlight" - another tale.
Michael Mirando and friends made them, eventually giving birth to the huge Imperial Knife Company.
Jewelers bought them, and added handle covers, some with precious metals, to add variety to their wares, and profits to their bank accounts. They often had blank banners so that names, greetings and wishes could be engraved on them, adding a few more bucks to the bottom line.
Pocket watches had a long history, so a bail was a common addition also, to facilitate addition to a watch chain. Probably helped sell a few chains - well you can see skeleton knives were an important product.
Most vest pockets, and many purses, were undoubtedly graced with one of these little embellished objects of art.
This 3" Empire-made skeleton, unused, gives us a nice example of some of the features that were needed to make a useful knife. This one was more of a picnic model, designed to open the beer or wine (who hasn't forgotten the church key or corkscrew??) It is ground mostly flush, to facilitate gluing on handles, with the exception of the hollow rivet, that needs the lip for security. Why a hollow rivet?? Likely to facilitate adding a bail, as you can easily pin it on right through the knife, at that location.
I suspect the majority of the embellished skeletons were sold sporting some form of manicuring capability, at least a file, and sometimes a pair of scissors.
I've posted a couple of fleshed out
)) skeletons with nail files as examples. Interesting to note, the blank for engraving is on the pile side of the Schrade. A traditional cutler would place it on the mark side, but Jewelry is a different trade, so the custom did not translate. The Hayward has one on each side, for longer messages (or names
).So post your skeleton/fob/whatever knives, so we can see how various jewelers/embellishers finished them.