Identifying this knife?

[DrRollinstein]

Hello traditional forum. I recently packed up my room to move houses, and found a bunch of knives i've had for probably close to 8-10 years now. I have no memory of getting them or where. Two USA schrades and one unknown knife. The Schrades are neat little finds, but i have no clue what this other knife is. Any help is appreciated.

 

[TheChunk91]

Imperial providence, RI. 1936-52 tang stamp. Imperial made cheap but highly functional and good quality knives. Yours is an older one when they still used solid bolsters. Most of the imperials you'll see have a shell handle, which means the handle assembly is just a piece of metal that looks like a bolster with a thin piece of faux bone or celluloid wrapped around the metal and is held on the liners with two tabs that are bent in on each end. It was a much cheaper and faster way to make knives than regular pin trough bolsters.

 

[TheChunk91]

This knife has the same stamp as yours so it's from the same era but with shell handles. You can see where the celluloid cover has shrunken, easier showing that it's just a thin wrap over the shell.



The tabs that hold the shell on the liners.



I really like imperials as they can be had for almost no money and they are good knives and quite available as they made huge amounts of them. The older ones have very thinly ground blades, almost paper thin behind the edge. Those thinly ground old ones put many expensive "superior" knives to shame with their excellent cutting ability.

 

[DrRollinstein]

This knife has the same stamp as yours so it's from the same era but with shell handles. You can see where the celluloid cover has shrunken, easier showing that it's just a thin wrap over the shell.

View attachment 1085899

The tabs that hold the shell on the liners.

View attachment 1085900

I really like imperials as they can be had for almost no money and they are good knives and quite available as they made huge amounts of them. The older ones have very thinly ground blades, almost paper thin behind the edge. Those thinly ground old ones put many expensive "superior" knives to shame with their excellent cutting ability.

Thanks for all the info! I haven't the faintest clue where I managed to pick it up as I had to have been around 15 at the time. It's a pretty nifty looking knife that seems to have seen a ton of use.

 

[hughd]

The older ones have very thinly ground blades, almost paper thin behind the edge.

How far back do you have to go to find these?

 

[TheChunk91]

How far back do you have to go to find these?

The ones from the 1936-52 era that I own with full blades are like this, including one hammer brand that's around the same era. Most of mine have the factory edge, so it's a pretty consistent observation.

 

[mykel m]

I really like imperials as they can be had for almost no money and they are good knives and quite available as they made huge amounts of them. The older ones have very thinly ground blades, almost paper thin behind the edge. Those thinly ground old ones put many expensive "superior" knives to shame with their excellent cutting ability.

Yes siree, I've got a 36-37 Hammer Brand and a 30-36 Imperial and both are lasers.
The Hammer is a shell constructed equal end cattle(?)and the Imperial is a solid bolstered serpentine.
Both with punches like the OP's.And both with speys.
Great old knives that did the job 80 some years ago and are still going strong.