Let's see your Scout/Camp knives

I picked up this Camillus Med Dept. U.S.N Scout off a forum friend, the Old girls done a bit of work, but a very respectable Knife to this day!

The job that Camillus did with their Bone was remarkable to say the least, to construct the shear amount of these knives and to have such regular quality? has to be an achievement all on it's own, but just because there were so many of these Knives- and others on the Camillus 14 frame - is NO reason to overlook the Beautiful Jig work and Stunning all round Bone!

Our good friend Buzz did an interesting Post on these https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/medical-department-united-states-navy.1524038/page-2

I really like this ol' Girl, and it joins my Scout collection with pride.....( apologies with the poor lighting, I was trying to squeeze in some quick shots before the Sun sank.

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Campbellclanman said:
I picked up this Camillus Med Dept. U.S.N Scout off a forum friend, the Old girls done a bit of work, but a very respectable Knife to this day!

The job that Camillus did with their Bone was remarkable to say the least, to construct the shear amount of these knives and to have such regular quality? has to be an achievement all on it's own, but just because there were so many of these Knives- and others on the Camillus 14 frame - is NO reason to overlook the Beautiful Jig work and Stunning all round Bone!

Our good friend Buzz did an interesting Post on these https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/medical-department-united-states-navy.1524038/page-2

I really like this ol' Girl, and it joins my Scout collection with pride.....( apologies with the poor lighting, I was trying to squeeze in some quick shots before the Sun sank.

XQMqZIi.jpg


cI5GfFN.jpg


dpluzmm.jpg


h8Mrrcq.jpg
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Duncan, that’s one to treasure for sure. Done some work, but looks quite ready to do a lot more.

I agree with you about the Camillus bone from this era. Such beautiful stuff that has held up well. As you pointed out, that they did it at such high volume is amazing. It would have been fascinating to visit the factory when production was running at full capacity.
 
Campbellclanman said:
The job that Camillus did with their Bone was remarkable to say the least, to construct the shear amount of these knives and to have such regular quality? has to be an achievement all on it's own, but just because there were so many of these Knives- and others on the Camillus 14 frame - is NO reason to overlook the Beautiful Jig work and Stunning all round Bone!

XQMqZIi.jpg
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Wow, Duncan. That one is a real beauty. You are so right about the Camillus bone. They have such a beautiful aged color to them, and simply magnificent random jigging. I honestly look at most modern jigged bone, with all of its perfectly spaced patterns, and fail to see the artistry in comparison to the old stuff.

It truly is hard to wrap my head around the consistently high quality of these knives. I think it was sort of a perfect storm. There was a large number of skilled craftsman at the time, European immigrants no less, during a war that was very personal to them. The people making these knives saw the end users as men who were fighting and dying for their families and homelands. The incentive to make them a knife that would help save their lives was very high. There was also a fair number of craftsman who had learned directly under the highly experienced immigrant cutlers who had helped found the business. Camillus was also working with a pattern than had been in production for decades. They already had the pattern down to a science, so it was relatively easy to expand production.
 
Just started collecting these "Scout" knives and in a week I've now bought 4. Only have pictures of one but I'll post the others soon. This one I don't know anything about, the only marking is " made in the USA" and I was told it's WW2 era. Anybody know more than that?
It's in good shape, the main blade has a very little bit of wobble but all the others are solid and everything opens easily with a good snap, no mail breakers and no mush.

The can opener is two pieces, I've never seen that before. The entire thing is impressively solid.

Now I have to go open some boxes of stuff my parents gave me and see if I can find my old boy scout knife.
 

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kingston73 said:
Just started collecting these "Scout" knives and in a week I've now bought 4. Only have pictures of one but I'll post the others soon. This one I don't know anything about, the only marking is " made in the USA" and I was told it's WW2 era. Anybody know more than that?
It's in good shape, the main blade has a very little bit of wobble but all the others are solid and everything opens easily with a good snap, no mail breakers and no mush.

The can opener is two pieces, I've never seen that before. The entire thing is impressively solid.

Now I have to go open some boxes of stuff my parents gave me and see if I can find my old boy scout knife.
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Nice Kingston!!!! Great bone on that one.

That's pretty awesome that Kingston posted a Kingston, and didn't even know it. LOL!!!

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Thanks for that information! I had no idea it was a kingston. So Kingston knives was a cooperative between Ulster and Imperial? So they only existed for 4 years?
 
Here are a couple more, still waiting for 1 to be delivered. These are both Camillus and from what little I've read so far I think the brass liner was earlier than the others? I also don't know what the 2 blade one is but I think that's later than all the others since it's got a different tang stamp. They are both missing the bails and the can opener on the brass USA one looks odd? Like it was broken and reground maybe? Also, when closed the main blade's point is elevated, does that mean it's been sharpened so much the point has lifted?

The 2 blade knife was DIRTY when I got it and I'm still trying to get it in workable condition, the caplifter is a nail breaker currently and I'm leaving it in the half opened position to hopefully loosen up the spring a bit. Also the scales are much darker and don't feel the same, possibly delrin? I have no idea what time frame it's from so any info is appreciated!

The last knife is my posted one above which is apparently a Kingston knife from between 43 and 47. It's definitely in the best shape of the 3.

Curious, how can I find the value of these types of knives, or is it just a guessing/comparison game? There are a few others currently on ebay I'm looking at but I'm not sure if they are overpriced or not. All 3 of these cost me about $50 total, the kingston was around $30 and the other 2 I bought together for about $20.

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kingston73 said:
Here are a couple more, still waiting for 1 to be delivered. These are both Camillus and from what little I've read so far I think the brass liner was earlier than the others? I also don't know what the 2 blade one is but I think that's later than all the others since it's got a different tang stamp. They are both missing the bails and the can opener on the brass USA one looks odd? Like it was broken and reground maybe? Also, when closed the main blade's point is elevated, does that mean it's been sharpened so much the point has lifted?

The 2 blade knife was DIRTY when I got it and I'm still trying to get it in workable condition, the caplifter is a nail breaker currently and I'm leaving it in the half opened position to hopefully loosen up the spring a bit. Also the scales are much darker and don't feel the same, possibly delrin? I have no idea what time frame it's from so any info is appreciated!

The last knife is my posted one above which is apparently a Kingston knife from between 43 and 47. It's definitely in the best shape of the 3.

Curious, how can I find the value of these types of knives, or is it just a guessing/comparison game? There are a few others currently on ebay I'm looking at but I'm not sure if they are overpriced or not. All 3 of these cost me about $50 total, the kingston was around $30 and the other 2 I bought together for about $20.

kvhz3U6.jpg

Eoip7d6.jpg

pSh0nez.jpg

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Pil1vKV.jpg

7Xe0jkZ.jpg

7ROtfY8.jpg

BisBMks.jpg

4nvHQMl.jpg
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Camillus dates are pretty easy to find... Do some Googling for "Camillus Tang Stamps" and you should find these ones. Pretty sure they are 1940s and 1950s knives. The can opener looks broken on the Camillus USA scout and the black one is synthetic but I don't think it's Delrin. If it is Delrin it's probably one of their first knife models with it. I would say you paid pretty much what they are worth, the Kingston was a pretty good deal IMO. Well done all around I would say! :):thumbsup:
 
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The 2 blade looks exactly like mine, however mine has rosewood covers. They are heavily stained almost black. Mine was full of old black oil and grease. I think a mechanic owned it. Took me quite awhile to find any information about it. But I finally did. Its refered to as a "Army post exchange resale knife" Mine has a different tang stamp, mine is a 4 line stamp. Even after ALLOT of Google-fu, yours is only the second one of this pattern I've seen pics of besides mine. I'm by far not a Camillus expert( I barely know anything really) but this has got to be a fairly rare knife nowadays. I can find almost nothing on them
 
Oh I should mention the bail was missing on mine, I made a new one from a piece of wire coat hanger. It fits the holes perfectly leaving enough room to allow it to swivel. The holes on mine do not go all the way through. Probably just through the bolster, stopping at the liners.
 
Misplaced Hillbilly said:
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The 2 blade looks exactly like mine, however mine has rosewood covers. They are heavily stained almost black. Mine was full of old black oil and grease. I think a mechanic owned it. Took me quite awhile to find any information about it. But I finally did. Its refered to as a "Army post exchange resale knife" Mine has a different tang stamp, mine is a 4 line stamp. Even after ALLOT of Google-fu, yours is only the second one of this pattern I've seen pics of besides mine. I'm by far not a Camillus expert( I barely know anything really) but this has got to be a fairly rare knife nowadays. I can find almost nothing on them
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I have one also. It can be found at this link, along with some info:

A Can of Camillus
 
kingston73 said:
It’s interesting, some sites don’t even show my stamp. The only place I’ve seen it so far is from a thread here, looks like it was 46 to 56. I found a little more info here:
http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/199375-engineer-pocket-knives/
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Your 2-blade is a war knife, toward the end of the war, when the supply of bone ran dry. The covers are a plastic made by Foster Grant.

The 4-blade Engineer's Knife is an early one, from before the brass ban. The main blade is very old, from before the start of the war. The blade was likely stamped in the 1930's.
 
Very good stuff guys:thumbsup: The covers on mine are definitely wood. Once cleaned up you can see the grain, but their still stained quite dark. I'll have to do some digging, there's an older thread somewhere on here with one pictured. Its in almost pristine condition and really shows off the rosewood used on some of these. Interesting that after much searching I see 2 more of these on the same day!:) :thumbsup:
Edit: found the other thread https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/camillus-army-post-exchange-resale-knife-from-wwii.1276675/
 
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Here are the other 3 I've finally taken pictures of. The top 2 are in incredible shape, I don't think the "kingston" knife has ever been used? Is there any way it could be a fake? Just seems way too pristine to be real but I don't know how or why anybody would fake a Kingston. The bottom one has an issue, you can see the spring at one end is sunken and the main blade does not lock open or closed. Any way to fix that or is it permanently broken?

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That Kingston in the center of your photos is gorgeous. Extremely unlikely to be a fake; just got used very little. I have knives that have seen very little use and I think that someday after I no longer am in "need" of them, someone will get them and wonder how they happened to still be in pristine condition. Knife folks love to discover old treasures like that.
The spring or tang end of the blade on that bottom knife has a lot of wear and is not putting pressure on the blade tang any longer. Looking closely at the picture there is a faint mark showing just past the center pin that looks like it could be a crack in the spring.
 
kingston73 said:
Here are the other 3 I've finally taken pictures of. The top 2 are in incredible shape, I don't think the "kingston" knife has ever been used? Is there any way it could be a fake? Just seems way too pristine to be real but I don't know how or why anybody would fake a Kingston. The bottom one has an issue, you can see the spring at one end is sunken and the main blade does not lock open or closed. Any way to fix that or is it permanently broken?

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Awesome knives!!! The 2 top ones are definite beauties. The top Camillus is in fantastic shape.

I think that's the first time I've seem the spine of a Kingston. Is it just me or is that an especially wide and burly knife? I love how you can still see "Kingston" on the blade. The blade etches are usually long gone.
 
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