If you could resurrect one defunct TRADITIONAL knife company, which one would it be?

Michael,

Yes I know Marbles still exists, I was referring to the knives made in Gladstone, MI.
Knives made there had the best fitment and were the sharpest production knives I've ever used.

Doug
 
Happy Rock is still their address. Are they all imported now? Or SFO from another maker? I admit I've not paid attention to the brand in some years, other than acquiring older examples and modern customs of their oldest patterns.
 
My top three companies that I would love to see back in business.

1. Cattaraugus
2. Marbles
3. Winchester/Remington (tie)
 
Codger_64 said:
Happy Rock is still their address. Are they all imported now? Or SFO from another maker? I admit I've not paid attention to the brand in some years, other than acquiring older examples and modern customs of their oldest patterns.
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Michael,

The post below is from another knife forum.
From Mike Stewart.

Please do not blame the current Owners for the Marbles Product line.

The product line was ruined by the same people that owned it from 1995 until the knife division was bankrupted recently.

The Current Owners asked if they should re-introduce a line of American made Marbles knives and they were advised by me that it was a waste of time and effort.

I advised them to continue to sell the Chinese and Pakistan made stuff that the previous owners ruined the line with.

I told them that it would be literally impossible to overcome the damage done by the previous owners.

They would never recover the money that they would have needed to invest to restore the Company to it's Pre-Chinese import days.

The Company was already totally Wrecked for knowledgeable Collectors so there was nothing to salvage.

The New Owners are making very good money on the Import stuff they are selling under that brand name now so in my opinion they should just keep doing that.

I also promised that if they did want anything made in short run production and American Made that I would make it for them.

To date I have only made a small batch of the Marbles Plus Club Knives from the 2009 orders that were paid for and the money lost in the Bankruptcy. I am making them for free because the Club Members don't deserve to be screwed out of their money. Sharpshooter is making the sheaths for free also.

It is very hard for many of us here to see a hundred year old American Company Wrecked but I'm afraid that there is no feasible way to salvage it.

Doug
 
Bummer. I guess I will continue to quench my Marbles thirst with antique relics and custom renditions of the antique patterns. Realisticly though, it is all about making a buck, same as with the knives currently being imported under the various Schrade markings. And it was, to an extent, also thus with the previous owners.

One has to like those older patterns that were well designed and well made. You like the c.1902 Marbles Ideal pattern? Maybe a newly made custom rendition by bladesmith David Stifle?

2cyf6u8.jpg
 
Really hard question for me. All that were mentioned are classics. I would like to buy a folding knife made and finished by hand. A production knife (so I can afford it) made as close to being done individually as cost allows. You see I tied the leather braid around my ankle and drove the wooden stake in the ground of the hilltop caring for Camillus made Bucks. So I have always had an odd affair. I want knives where one guy carries his tray of finished product to the quality control person, runs his hand lightly over his children, flicks a little rouge from a bolster and then turns and goes back to work at his bench.......300
 
pinnah said:
Schrade, minus the Swinden key.

Another option would be blow some air into the sails of Utica. I believe they still make some of their knives in upstate NY. That's really the heritage I would like to see continued.
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Yes, they do. They are one of the suppliers for Moore Maker.
 
Codger_64 said:
Sure. Invented by Schrade Walden employee Dave Swinden, it is a system of building a knife without having to drill thru the bolsters and pin thru. Here is an example, an 897UH knife I took apart.

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Note the keyholes. Heads formed in the pivot pins protrude through the large part of the hole, then rotate into the slot locking them in. The bolsters are attached to the liners with tommy-on pins from their backs. So the bolster is a part of the subassembly with liner, cover, shield and rear bolster in place. The center skeleton is assembled, then the two outer cover assemblies added and pivoted in place, then the center spring pin pressed thru to lock it all together.

Here it the patent itself and the accompanying drawings explain it well.
http://www.collectors-of-schrades-r.us/patents/002977678.pdf
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So is that a problem? I have noticed that my Schrade knives are the only ones I have that have absolutely no side to side blade wobble and never develop it. What is the drawback to the Swinden key?
 
Modified the thread title to include the word TRADITIONAL. Too many people answering the question without looking to see which forum this is in.
 
henryhide said:
So is that a problem? I have noticed that my Schrade knives are the only ones I have that have absolutely no side to side blade wobble and never develop it. What is the drawback to the Swinden key?
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I've never encountered one that didn't have blade wobble.

And to be on topic: Camillus. I don't think I appreciated them when they were around.
 
henryhide said:
So is that a problem? I have noticed that my Schrade knives are the only ones I have that have absolutely no side to side blade wobble and never develop it. What is the drawback to the Swinden key?
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All my Old Timers are tight and as I recall, all the ones I've ever owned were too. I've owned Case and German Eye Brand knives that had it.

Maybe I'm not that hard on them or something...
 
How about some of the really good old brands like Miller Brothers, Napanoch, Holly and New York Knife? Schrades were always were cheap hardware store knives made by a family that sold the cutlery buying public out in 1958.
 
henryhide said:
So is that a problem? I have noticed that my Schrade knives are the only ones I have that have absolutely no side to side blade wobble and never develop it. What is the drawback to the Swinden key?
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No problem in normal use, but with wear, they cannot be tightened without disassembly, which requires cutting the spring pivot pin (sproing!) and pressing the two scale/bolster assemblies downward to disengage the blade pivot pin heades from the liners. Same for blade replacement when needed. This was the reason Buck's repair complaints led Baer to shift the Buck 300 series over to Camillus with their use of old standard through-bolster pinning. Then Buck could repair those 300 series knives in-house as needed.
 
Sidehill Gouger said:
How about some of the really good old brands like Miller Brothers, Napanoch, Holly and New York Knife? Schrades were always were cheap hardware store knives made by a family that sold the cutlery buying public out in 1958.
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I guess I am not following this statement? What happened in 1958? They moved part of the factory operations from Walden to new facilities in Ellenville, but what else? How did they "sell out" the public?
 
Schrade, Camillus and the other New York state makers told the Feds they were OK with banning switchblades. In later years Schrade would have sold brands like Spyderco down the river in a minute if they could just keep making their cheap three blade stockmen as they didn't believe in one-hand opening anything. In the end, poor business decisions like that caught up with them.
 
So... it was Schrade Walden's fault? And Camillus? Not Boker? Or any other maker of a certain style/action knife? From what I can tell, Schrade Walden had discontinued making automatics some years before, most likely because they weren't good sellers, therefore low profit. Boker on the other hand, had purchased Geo. Schrade Cutlery specificly to obtain the tooling and patents for automatics.

ETA: I just went and checked. Schrade Walden was forced out of the business in 1954 by the New York State ban and moved production to the Providence Imperial factory. Both the State laws and Federal law were written, promoted and passed by the respective legislatures. I still don't understand how the individual cutleries were responsible for the legislation. Or what reviving a different cutlery which didn't hold patents, have designs and tooling would do to punish the supposed responsible cutleries and cause automatics to be produced there. However the names of those responsible for enacting Public Law 85-623 of 1958 are on record. Of course they are all dead now too.
 
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Schrade, I still need to buy an old USA made schrade knife and I would love it if they were still making those so I could go into a store and look at them.
 
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