Most traditional...

Q

Quy4n8

Joined
Nov 27, 2002
Messages
659
Or maybe a better way of saying it is, what comes to mind when you think of a “traditional pocket knife”? I don’t mean oldest. This will most likely be heavily influenced by your heritage and background. If you were born and raised in Europe, maybe an Opinel or SAK comes to mind, if form the city, maybe a peanut or advertising knife. I was born and raised in the country and around farmers; for me, either a two bladed jackknife, such as a Case XX Texas Jack or a Barlow, primarily due to Mark Twain. For me, the jack has to have dark brown jigged bone scales and both have to have carbon steel blades. What do you see in your minds eye?
 
two blade barlow
pen knife
or a teardrop jack knife

it would be hard to pick just one, but those are the ones that immediately pop to mind for me
 
Barlow, it was my first knife 41 years ago. Back then most of us kids had one, usually an Imperial shell handle or the like.
 
Schrade and Imperial were the most popular and the Muskrat and Lockback are the main ones I think of. This is the 80's in Alabama. That's what I think of as traditional anyways.
 
I grew up in the Ozark mountains of southwest Missouri. As I remember it the Stockman pattern was king. I remember seeing them in all sizes. Everything from the little 108ot Schrades and 6333 Case's to the big 4 1/4" Buck like my Grandad carried. The 3 1/4 Stockman was popular and Schrade 34ot's and Buck 303's were very common.
All most all of them had synthetic scales. I do remember seeing a few bone handled Case models but not many. So I guess when I think of an honest, old timey, traditional pocket knife I think of some Stockman with delrin scales. Buck 307's and 303's come to mind almost immediately as does the Case yellow handled 3318.
Jim
 
For me it's a small two blade jack of some sort.

When I was a kid, I had a foot in both worlds. My dad moved us to Washington D.C. for his job just after the war. But when I wasn't in school, I spent a lot of summers on my grandparents place down on Maryland's eastern shore. Our place in Washington was city, but the eastern shore was very rural coastal waterman area. When I was 'down home' as I thought of the shore, it was a pretty knify place. There were hunters, (really poachers, but they didn't think of it that way,) working watermen, and farmers. They all carried a knife, and if they were not hunting, the knife was usually a small two blade jack of some sort. Barlow, serpentine jack, equal end jack, or even a trapper. there was muskrat skinning beong done, and the trapper was the perfect knife for the job. If they were hunting, a small leather handle Little Finn type sheath knife was worn, but for the most part, a two blade jack was the universal knife of the day.

In the city, Washington D.C., and later when dad moved us out to the Maryland suburbs, the two blade jack was still the knife of choice for most men of that era. Delivery drivers, postmen, store clerks, newsboys, and tradesmen, all carried some form of two blade jack. Sometimes a war issue TL-29 that had come home in a pocket was used. When I think of the knife of my childhood, the two blade jack was the ubiquitous knife of the post war times. An office worker may carry a small jack like a peanut or dogleg, or even a giveaway jack from a hardware company or car company with the logo on cracked ice celluloid scales. My own father carried a Case peanut, and was loyal to the type, using his little knife for any cutting job that came up.

Until the 1960's and Buck knife, the two blade jack was king.
 
My grandfather and dad carry yellow handle Case Trappers. And if someone around here sees a yellow handled knife they assume its a Case. That was my first knife so it's what I think of first.
 
I lived the first ten years of my life where I was born in Birmingham, AL and then the next dozen years in Knoxville, TN. I left east TN at age 22 New Years 1985. All the men folk of my youth nearly always had a stockman on them 3 1/4" or 3 5/8" size. The exception was my grandad when he didn't carry a stock knife it was his Case SL Trapper, and my uncle Bobby has always carried an Old Timer locking Folding Hunter as far back I can remember nearly. My granddad and uncle lived where my uncle still lives in Athens, AL. Here's two of my granddad's old knives a worn out Case SL BH Trapper and a worn Case 47 DE Jack, and he had gone through quite a few OT 340Ts as well...
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A Rodgers 'Bunny' knife. My grandfather had one and gave it to me when he was too old to use it anymore. Sadly I no longer have it.
 
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for me it is some type of 2 bladed jacknife or maybe a pen knife usually not much bigger than a standard barlow
 
With all of Carl's stories about the Peanut, it seems to have ingrained itself in my head under the term.
 
I'm one of the only guys at work that always has a traditional of some type on my person.My Dads Father carried an old Boker large Stockman,while Moms Dad carried a small Case of some sort,Don't recall what type:o.But to me,a traditional is a slipjoint,whether it be Carbon or stainless with bone,stag,or Delrin.As long as it looks traditional,it's traditional to me,if that makes any sense.-Jim
 
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