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- Dec 2, 2005
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Jack could you expound on the "liver and draw" system?
It stands for 'Deliver and draw' Dwight. The smaller cutlers were commissioned by the large firms to make the knives. Depending on their size, they might be issued with a tang-stamp and pattern tools, or they might be issued with stamped blades, and even other parts of the knife. When the knives were made, the small cutlers delivered them to the large firm, and drew their pay. The piece-work rates were terrible, knives might be rejected, and from the mid 18th century onwards, the big firms demanded 13 knives (and later 14) to the dozen. I remember a young cutler, still working, who told me how he remembered, as a child, his mother and father, who I also knew, dragging boxes of knives (in parts) through the snow on Christmas Eve, and they were happy to get the work. That was in Sheffield, in the 1980's.