Garage sale knives

Xenocrates

Xenocrates

Joined
Oct 18, 2008
Messages
27
Hello,

I've been a member here for some time now and I don't post much but here goes. My wife and I have a friend who goes to garage sales a lot. She picked up three camp knives recently that were in a wooden box she liked, didn't know they were there until she picked it up and felt them rattle around. Anyway knowing I am into pocket knives she asked if they were for sale and how much for them, the person running the sale said $6 for all three. They are a Camillus, an Imperial Prov. R.I. and one that I'm pretty sure says Pal Cutlery. The first two are in pretty good shape the last one looks like someone took a grinder to the blade at some point. I know a little about Camillus and Imperial but I am not familiar with Pal Cutlery. I'm going to try and get a couple pictures of them tomorrow and post them. Never posted pics but I've read on it now and have a photobucket account as of today so we'll see :) The Camillus and Pal Cutlery knives look to have some age to them, the Imperial looks to be the most recent. Been trying to clean up a little rust on the Imperial with flitz and it seems to have worked well enough and oil them a bit. I used mineral oil on the Pal knife as the scales look to be bone while the other two are man made material of some sort. I was also given a Colonial Prov. TL-29 by a neighbor a little while ago that is in good shape as well, I'll try to add that in too.

Pat
 
PAL was originally an import brand, used by Utica Knife & Razor Co. Pal Blade Company started in 1935, mainly making safety razor blades in Plattsburgh NY. In November 1940, Remington closed and sold off its cutlery division located in Bridgeport CT. Pal bought most of it, including tooling, patterns, parts, distributor accounts, and even patents. Moved it all back to the Plattsburgh area.

Can't wait to see pics!
 
Ok, I hope this worked correctly. Here are the knives. They are in decent shape not sure exactly how old they are maybe 80's-90's(?) but I really have no idea. Maybe someone here who knows much more on knives than I can say. It looks like they were cleaned up by someone at some point and they used an abrasive of some kind sadly. I didn't see anything on the size of pictures allowed so I hope I haven't broken any rules, I apologize now if so and hopefully someone can correct me for future posts :)


knife1.jpg

knife2.jpg

knife3.jpg



(I apologize for the cloth the knives are on. I was so focused on trying to get the pics of the knives I didn't realize. My wife pointed out the cloth has oil and such on it, it's the one I've had the knives sitting on as I have been cleaning them up and oiling them)
 
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The bigger the pictures the better, Xenocrates!

Super nice ...all three!! The PAL is almost certainly bone and the other two its hard to tell from the pictures. You did extremely well, sir
 
Thanks, I figure for $6 no way to go wrong on these :) I tried to do some checking on dates via google, if I read it correctly the camillus might be from 1946-1956 based on the tang stamp (Camillus and New York below it) the pal cutlery knife possibly the same time frame if I can use the date to approximate from Vanguard's post here. The tang stamp is hard to read but I used a magnifying glass and it says Pal Cutlery Co. in an arch and Made in USA under that I believe, very hard to read under the word "Made". The imperial I haven't been able to find anything on dating based on the tang stamp however. Took the pics with my phone and I need to use a brighter light I think but they give good idea on the knives. If it helps I can post other pics and if anyone has info on these as to age please feel free to reply.

Thanks,
Pat
 
Thank you very much Gevonovich! It looks like the imperial would be from the 1936-1952 range based on the tang stamp. If that's possible, I really can't believe these knives are that old, especially with the camillus and imperial seeming to have made made materials for their handles. I'm going to think they are from the late 40's to mid 50's based on what info I've looked up and from what you and others have posted. As many have said before on threads here, if knives could talk what stories they could tell. I'm still new to collecting but unless I'm way off in my thinking these are the oldest knives I have by far.
 
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