Multi-blades an Anglo-Saxon thing?

[jackknife]

I can't recall if I ever put this question to the porch before, just one of the penalties for reaching an age where I'm having trouble remembering what Ihad for breakfast. But…

Looking all over the world, a good deal of it I had the good fortune to have traveled to while serving in the army, it seems the working guys knife, the knife in the hands of the guy opening a bag of cement, cutting off some twine to go between the survey stakes, stripping some insulation off a wire to make a connection, or just eating lunch, is a single blade pattern. The Opinel and Douk-Douk from France, the F. Herders and Mercators from Germany, the navaja and terramundi from Spain, The Zuava from Italy, and the Resolza from Sardinia, as well as the pruning knives and real Lambs food jacks from England, all are single blades for the most part. The Higonokami from Japan, is yet another example of the working mans pocket knife. And lets not forget the Okapi from South Africa.

With the exception of the U.S. and England, it seems like we are the sole market for the multi bladed pocket knives. The famed Swiss Army Knives seem to be a international exception, but those are multitool knives with the extra "blades" being functional tools like screw drivers and corkscrews. There are lots of beautiful examples of lobster patterns from Sheffield's heyday, with little scissors, nail files, pipe reamers, and ever a knife blade or two, encased in exquisite pearl handles. But these seem to be the exception to the rule, and the fact that these knives survived seem to point to them being in the hands of the landed gentry, who have no real hand labor to do.

Would a vinyard worker or farm hand in France ever use a stockman, or a forester in the forests of Germany be using a Barlow? Or a construction guy in Italy use a congress?

Yes, I know that Sheffield and Solingen produced these patterns in huge numbers, but how much of them were for the rich export markets in American? Inquiring minds want to know. Or at least mine does.

Edit to add; I remember walking around in different market places in different places like in Tripoli Libya, or Vietnam, and never seeing a single American style traditional pocket knife. Yet, in Tripoli they had baskets full of Douk-Douk's and Opinels. In Vietnam they had tons of Japanese low cost folders with single blades. And in France of course, were boxes of Opinel's and displays of lots of other French cutlery, almost all single blades.

 

[Will Power]

When Sheffield was a force to be reckoned with in the cutlery world, it probably did think about the huge American market. Sharing the same language (kind of...) and combining this with British mercantile and navy power at the time must have been a contributing factor. German and English cutlers emigrated to the US and perpetuated this taste for multi-blade patterns. England, and the rest of Europe may have been mainly single-blade orientated - although the English tradition of making outlandishly complex exhibition knives should be noted - I suspect that French cutlers made multi-blades too. Particularly with corkscrews or fleams but 2 blade penknife types were common.

Jolipapa will know.

 

[mnblade]

As I reckon I too may have said before, I've lived in Europe for all but 5 years since 1993. As a knife knut with a keen eye for who's cutting what with what, I have never ever noticed anyone using any knife that we Americans would recognize as a "traditional" (meaning a stockman, trapper, congress, peanut, etc.). I've seen countless Swiss Army knives, a few Leathermans and Leatherman-type tools, a handful of Opinels, and a bunch of modern, one-hand-opening folders. I once showed a Romanian colleague my US-made, carbon-steel Old Timer stockman. He was baffled as to why I'd carry it instead of a SAK.

-- Mark

 

[silenthunterstudios]

Great topic for a thread, I've got a million thoughts about this trying to get through my fingers on this subject. Basically, Americans don't take the time to enjoy life, even when we're not at work. We need our work/leisure time tasks taken care of yesterday. Then we romanticize these knives, old professions etc. Get your task done now. More implements so you don't have to walk back to your tool box/kit/bed roll? I've confused myself and trying to race before lunch is over to get this out, having erased several posts in the process.

If that makes any sense, I'll add that I'm just glad that Sheffield got the ball rolling.

 

[supratentorial]

I think we should be careful to avoid using stereotypes. I'm more familiar with American cutlery history than European. But I have some familiarity with Victorinox's history. The original Swiss army knife was imported from Germany (before Victorinox). Here's a 1903 Victorinox catalog page. None of these knives were intended for export to the USA. One single blade and many multi-blades on this page. The knives made by Victorinox were not as widely exported in the early days. It wasn't until after WWII that they became popular in the USA when returning soldiers brought the knives home.

 

[jc57]

Speculating, but I am assuming it had to do with the particular flow of history and timing. Industrial revolution happened to kick off in Britain. Steel-making, steam power, first large scale factories. Might have happened elsewhere except for the fact that at that particular time in world history, the British Empire was the big dog on the block. So, some enterprising fellows in Sheffield came up with a new knife design containing multiple blades. By sheer coincidence, a new continent was being explored and colonized by people who had come from various European countries. The British primarily in North America in what is now the eastern US. So you had a nation of people who were in a more-or-less pioneering and exploring culture and had a growing market for British goods, which would include the Sheffield-style pocket knives.

Had the course of world civilization and industrialization gone a different direction, multi-bladed knives might have been developed elsewhere first and spread to a different group of people, or perhaps they would just be an odd quirk of that small, insignificant island country off the coast of France and everyone would be carrying Higonokamis in the remnants of the global Japanese empire (another island nation off the coast of a large continent).

So probably just a side effect of how history and global commerce happened to play out. Kind of like how the particular arrangement of automobile controls in the US ended up standardized based on the design of one early manufacturer that just happened to be adopted by everyone else. Or why Microsoft is dominant in operating systems today. Right place at the right time, and the market favored them.

 

[r redden]

I too am only speculating as I have never considered this question before Carl but in reality I guess that a single blade that is designed for both puncturing and slicing such as a clip, drop, spear and such is all the utility one would ever need from a knife. It is possible that multi blade knives came from both the desire to create something new that featured specialty tools (blades) and as much as those of us that tend to stay within the traditional knife world would like to keep this this phrase associated with modern folders The "cool factor". One thing that we Anglo Saxon people and Americans in particular do is that we are always in search for the bigger, better, newest things available. The multi blade knives became the thing to have and that fueled the massive market for these type knives we see today. I also think if we truly defined a traditional knife it would be a simple full tang sheath knife.

 

[w.t. anderson]

The multi-tool pocket knife has been around longer than most of us realize, further back than the earliest SAK - Thomas Jefferson (his knife shown below right) and George Washington each carried one, I believe Jefferson's may have been made in France, the multi-bladed/tooled knife thing was popular in Paris when he served there. And that's just recently compared to the uncovered 1800-year old Roman multiblade artifact I saw pictured a few months ago (shown below left). I haven't found a Paleolithic knapped stone version yet, but don't underestimate the creativity and inventiveness (or in my case, the laziness) of man.

 

[Jolipapa]

I will be a bit provocative, but all this reminds me of Montesquieu's "How could you be a Persian?"
What are we talking about? Is it of multi blades, or of patterns?
If we talk of pattern, the answer to "Would a vinyard worker or farm hand in France ever use a stockman...?" is def NO , just because it is not the right tool. He would much prefer something like this this Chatellerault (though this one a bit too mundane for a simple peasant) :

If we consider the number of blades, here is the beginning of an answer :

often a given pattern would be available as a single or multi, in several sizes and shapes of blades

And a huge difference : in the US, most multis patterns were made for carving. In France a knife is primarily used to eat. A large blade rather than several smaller. Two purposes. And we did not discuss of the shape of the blades!

edit: while typing I had not read w.t. anderson's answer

 

[GaiusJulius]

I do know that the Solingen and Sheffield prosperity after the Napoleonic wars and the rise of industrial production, was predominantly tied to their lucrative business exporting knives to North America. These cities' industry began to decline when American cutlers succeeded in getting congress to pass protective tariffs, which made the foreign imports prohibitively expensive. Thereafter a lot of English and German cutlers emigrated to the US, and founded or enriched many of the companies we think of from the "golden age," ~1880-1940.

So American taste for multiple blades may very well have been fostered by Sheffield's expertise in this department, and the presumably better profits they could get from a relatively wealthy market like the USA, selling Congresses and jackknives, instead of friction folders.

What I wonder is, did the wealthier British colonies like Australia and New Zealand with higher per-capita spending power, get knives as elaborate as those that got sent to the US?

 

[lutejones]

I agree with jc57 in that the socioeconomic and political arena of the industrial revolution made "fancy" and multibladed knives, expensive till that day. available to the general public.
I think that the mentality of the first Americans could have something to do because in Europe the trades were very hard to change, "that is how it's done, and we've been doing it this way for 300years" or what do you need three blades for"

While in Young America they were willing to try and discover, besides people travelled light and they were very far away from each other on a big part of the territory where you had to make do with what's in your pocket as Carl's stories remember us (in a most enjoyable way I may say). On that situations 3 different cutting edges would have been and advantage.

 

[jc57]

Could be that tobacco was a New World crop, and you needed a good straight blade to cut off a chaw, and a different one to cut up your steak, and a third one to sharpen your quill pen.

 

[supratentorial]

In addition to images in catalogs, some catalogs gave examples of intended uses. And you can also look at books for examples. I only have American examples but maybe some of the forum members from other countries have other examples.

There's a reference to the Barnet Plier Knife (knife shown in my avatar photo) in a 1909 Officer's Manual by Captain James A. Moss. At the top of page 304, Moss recommends that enlisted men carry a combination knife and mentions that the "H. H. H. Knife" by Oscar Barnett, Newark, N. J. is very good.

In this 1910 catalog page the sheepfoot on a stockman is described as for cutting tobacco or carpentry work such as scribing. The pen blade on the cattle knife is described as for light work. The stockman is described as their best selling knife.

 

[knarfeng]

As an American, and a rather provincial one at that, I don't have a valid opinion.

I will defer to our Parisian friend, Jolipapa, who has posted above, and any others from the EU for opinions on what is "traditional" in those realms.

 

[Mikael W]

When visiting antique stores, I sometimes find slipjoints from the past.
They are mostly made in Eskilstuna, a local equivalent to Sheffield and Solingen.
Every knife I have seen has been multiblade slipjoints and in wornout condition, so I have walked away from them.

As a general the local models are of the equal end type and thinner than American slipjoints.
There are other types as well, mostly etched and goldplated, but very thin for a good fit in a vestpocket or a suit.

A regional type is the Barrelknife, but that is a singleblade workingknife.

My Father had a Solingen 2 blade penfolder and my Grandfather used equal end's from Eskilstuna.
My Greatgrandfather carried a German 2 blade with a corkscrew and I still have it.
Bernard Levine dated it to the 1880-1920 era.

Personally I prefer the US made reproductions, as they are more solid and has good heat-treatment.


Regards
Mikael

 

[Berkley]

From Eskilstuna, AKA “The Sheffield of Sweden”. All blades (and corkscrew ) showing signs of considerable use.

 

[george65]

I can't recall if I ever put this question to the porch before, just one of the penalties for reaching an age where I'm having trouble remembering what Ihad for breakfast. But…

we've seen your picture, you're not that old

 

[jackknife]

we've seen your picture, you're not that old

Hey, it's not just the years, it's the miles!

 

[FelineGirl]

I must say that this is a fascinating thread! I'm enjoying it and learning a lot!


Alex

 

[jackknife]

-- Mark[/QUOTE]

As I reckon I too may have said before, I've lived in Europe for all but 5 years since 1993. As a knife knut with a keen eye for who's cutting what with what, I have never ever noticed anyone using any knife that we Americans would recognize as a "traditional" (meaning a stockman, trapper, congress, peanut, etc.). I've seen countless Swiss Army knives, a few Leathermans and Leatherman-type tools, a handful of Opinels, and a bunch of modern, one-hand-opening folders. I once showed a Romanian colleague my US-made, carbon-steel Old Timer stockman. He was baffled as to why I'd carry it instead of a SAK.

-- Mark

I guess that's been my experience in Europe and Southeast Asia. In my time abroad, I don't recall ever seeing a knife that we on this porch would recognize as something we grew up with. In fact, the most humorous and poignant at the same times was an old Arab gentleman I knew in Libya. We had been TDY from our engineer base in West Germany, to extend the runways at the old Wheelus Air Force base in the pre-Gadaffi era.

This old Arab gentleman was a liaison and interpreter for the local labor. He was a gentleman in every sense of the word, and had a bering of a man in charge in a gentle sort of way. In fact I used Mustaffa as a character in one of my stories, as in our few months or working together I grew fond of the old man. We were on the job site on day, and I had used my Buck 301 to cut open a package, and I saw Mustaffa eye balling it. I handed it over to him for some chicken eying and coon fingering. He looked and felt the main clip blade, then closed it, and opened the sheep foot blade, I saw the wrinkle deepen between his eyes and he looked puzzled. Then he closed the sheep foot blade and pulled out the spey. His look of puzzlement increased, and he studied the knife quite a bit. Then he closed it up and handed it back to me. The following short conversation made an impression on me.

I asked him if he liked it, as I had the thought of gifting it too him if he did. But his reaction spoke volumes.

"It is a very nice knife, Sayyd, but if I may ask, why would a man need three blades in one knife?"

I explained to him the different blades, and how you have spare blades in case one goes dull, but I had the sudden realization that I was talking to someone from such a totally different culture that it would have been Greek to him. His next comment was clear on that.

"But sayyd, if a blade is truly sharp, will it not part whatever it is put against to cut with no matter as to it's shape? And if it does not, then it is in need of sharpening."

There on a dusty construction site in the hot Libyan sun, this old man dropped a bit of wisdom that somehow stuck in my mind all these years. Over the years it kept bouncing around my mind like an echo, and I thought about it all the times I worked with French guys with Lagioule's or Opinels, German guys with Herders sodbusters, Vietnamese guys with those funny leaf/banana shaped bevel bladed Chinese knives, or even American guys with a Buck 110 or the old school guys with a well used Case sodbuster. And over the years I used a Mercator or an Opinel, and somehow I survived with a single blade. But still, in my years overseas, I don't ever recall seeing a stockman, or a trapper, or any other "American" style of knife. I saw a goat dressed and butchered with Douk-Douk's at a feast, and they did very well. This was the root of my questioning, if the knives we hold dear were just an American/English market thing.

Back in the Washington D.C. area we lived in, our Vespa Scooter club had some members from abroad. One, Pascal, was born and raised in Paris. When he saw me carrying an Opinel, he remarked that it was the only knife to carry. I saw he always had one as well. Then his father and brother came to visit, and we all went out to lunch one day. Both his father and brother had an Opinel in their pocket and felt free to use them on the bread at lunch. Talking about knives with them, they seemed to think of a knife other than an Opinel or a SAK as an alien concept.

But, that's just one mans experience in life.