Multi-blades an Anglo-Saxon thing?

I never thought about this before, but am now! Interesting read, I will be checking in again:)
 
I can take a try at this.

I'm not a knife history expert, but I am very familiar with livestock production systems in place all over the world. I would make the argument that livestock production was modeled at first on the English system (think larger sheep grazing and cattle grazing like in Scotland and Ireland). As westward expansion in the US took place, we developed something unique but heavily influenced by Spanish cattle grazing.

So, the tools that were used became Americanized. Like knives. A stockman knife was marketed as a tool for Cowboys, ranchers, etc. Just like some knives today are 'made' for tactical people and buyers want to carry what a special forces guy carries. A hundred forty years ago you may have wanted what you thought a cowboy carried.


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If I understand your story, a couple of folks from different countries said they prefer single blades. Similarly if you asked one American the same question, his answer may or may not be representative, of course. He may not even carry a knife. I suspect some would respond very differently to the question. Having more than one blade shape or redundancy can be useful. Dull one blade and you can just use the other. Etc.

I had taken your original post to be on a broad context since you mentioned exports. I also thought you were talking about the history. If you are just talking about individuals today, I suspect a lot of folks won't carry a traditional knife at all. Those who carry a knife will most likely carry a modern knife. Most modern knives are single blades. In my perspective familiarity with single blade modern knives is why most modern knife converts prefer single blade traditional knives. But it's just an opinion.
 
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The single blade has some advantages. It's usually thinner and lighter, you get a bigger blade for the handle because it's a pure jackknife design, and there's no need to shorten the blade to accommodate another pivot on the other end. Also no tang to stab your finger while working. They're also simpler and cheaper to make than multi-blade knives, whether they are slipjoints or simpler types. And certainly, they will get the job done.
 
There certainly some advantages to each (also some advantages to a fixed blade). I wouldn't say they are more American or European. And I wouldn't say that real work is only done with a single blade. My grandfather carried a multi-blade and I've never met a harder worker. He was also an immigrant.
 
A very interesting subject, but I think it’s necessary to go back a little further in time. Multi-bladed folding knives actually have a long tradition in France, and were probably first made there. Perhaps the first were knives with one steel blade, and one of silver or gold, for cutting fruit, developed during the latter part of the 17th century. A French knife of this type was reputedly given by King Charles II to his mistress Nell Gwyn. During this period, French cutlers were arguably foremost in terms of cutlery innovation, and their designs were very influential in terms of those produced in England, up to around 1770, when Napoleon began his conquest of Europe. While the French influence on British pocket knives began to wane thereafter, many of the pocket knives included in Smith’s Key of 1816 clearly have a degree of French design influence. According to cutlery historian Simon Moore, “The design of the couteau was favoured by English cutlers who liked and copied the idea of mounting blades at either end of the haft. Although English versions of this knife [as described above] were produced, mainly later in the 18th century, many incorporated two steel blades of different sizes rather than one of silver or gold.” So, the quintessentially English penknife may owe much to our friends across the water, the French :)

The earliest folding knives, across Europe, were designed primarily as eating implements, rather than folding tool boxes, which only came later. Obviously the US is a much younger country, where folks had different requirements of a folding knife. Many of the folding patterns produced in Sheffield were aimed specifically at the American market, by far the biggest customer of the Sheffield cutlery firms, and, as with the Bowie knife, there was certainly a degree of canny marketing in terms of designs (by both the European cutlery firms and the European cutlers who settled in the US), the Stockman pattern springs to mind. After the introduction of import tariffs, and as the US developed its own cutlery industry, Sheffield cutlers had to try and maintain an edge. Despite some superb examples produced in France and Germany (where multi-bladed knives have long been popular with hunters), I think it can be argued that Sheffield was paramount in terms of producing multi-bladed knives, and acquired an unparalleled reputation for their cutlery, but in England at least, the Sportsman’s knives would have been reserved for the relatively affluent, with most people in Britain carrying a single-bladed knife, or a penknife or two-blade Jack (I dare say that was true of many folks in the US too), with the vast majority of pocket knives with more than two blades being aimed at the export market.
 
Nice historical info and practical insight, Jack. What is available and what one can afford plays a large part in decision making then and now...

....unless you are collector and then you max out your credit card when there's a SFO from GEC. ;)
 
This got me thinking: when I go deer hunting and know that if I am successful I will certainly use my fixed blade knife for hours that day I only ever bring one fixed blade knife (one blade). When I go to work in the morning I might eat an apple and open a box or two: I usually have 2 or 3 knives on me (sometimes that makes for 5+ blades)!

This is a really interesting thread!
 
I would like to back up Carl with my own observations. For over 30 years of my life, I had an opportunity to travel internationally in my former career. I lived and worked in Central America, Sub-Saharan Africa, South America and the Middle East. Now I am not talking about what was produced, by whom..I am talking about what I actually observed in use in these various locales. What the "locals" used were either Swiss Army Knives or single-blade "using knives." Their place of manufacture (for the single-blade knives) varied to the locale involved. But I wholeheartedly agree with Carl's assessment.

Just my $0.02 worth...for whatever that's worth!

Regards,
Ron
 
rwc53 said:
I would like to back up Carl with my own observations. For over 30 years of my life, I had an opportunity to travel internationally in my former career. I lived and worked in Central America, Sub-Saharan Africa, South America and the Middle East. Now I am not talking about what was produced, by whom..I am talking about what I actually observed in use in these various locales. What the "locals" used were either Swiss Army Knives or single-blade "using knives." Their place of manufacture (for the single-blade knives) varied to the locale involved. But I wholeheartedly agree with Carl's assessment.

Just my $0.02 worth...for whatever that's worth!

Regards,
Ron
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I agree that single blade knives and swiss army knives may be more common.... in the USA as well as everywhere else that I've been over the years. Most modern knives in the last 30 years are single blades in the USA. Aside from Swiss army knives, modern knives seem to be more common than traditional knives in the USA.

However, I wouldn't say that multi-blade traditional knives are more "Anglo Saxon" or that real work requires a single blade folding traditional knife.
 
I guess I should clarify that I was not saying that they were more "Anglo-Saxon" ( I guess being of Scots and Bavarian ancestry, I am neither! LOL!). I was simply confirming what Carl had observed. I believe it has to do more with economics of a region, and those working than it does availability, or production numbers. For the most part, single-blade folders are less expensive.

Regards,
Ron
 
rwc53 said:
I guess I should clarify that I was not saying that they were more "Anglo-Saxon" ( I guess being of Scots and Bavarian ancestry, I am neither! LOL!). I was simply confirming what Carl had observed. I believe it has to do more with economics of a region, and those working than it does availability, or production numbers. For the most part, single-blade folders are less expensive.

Regards,
Ron
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I didn't mean to imply that you had said it. But it is the subject of the title and Carl's posts. You just aren't confirming that part. I agree that single blades are common, especially today. I also agree about the availability and economics. I don't agree with the title and subject of this topic.
 
So the essential question then, is, were the multiblade jackknives and cattle knives, and other patterns with two, three, or four blades, ever used and sold in a big way in Britain? We know they were exported to the US but were they also exported to other places too?
 
There are certainly specific patterns that are more common for certain countries. But in general, a knife with more than one blade is not an Anglo Saxon thing. Jack gave some history. Jolipapa's post showed French multi-blades. And my post showed Swiss multi-blades that were not intended for export. There are definitely multi-blades from Germany as well. Those are just a few examples.
 
This thread grows in interest.

Multi-blades in the USA may well have been popular due to availability of course but also because of innovation. They were of course the 'moderns' of their day and the ingenuity or modernity factor should not be overlooked. A kind of gadgetry admiration if you like which a booming and expanding society such as the US in the late c19th early c20th would have fostered. There are naturally, practical applications to multiblades and the enjoyment of ownership is another aspect. Or simply, when you live in the Old World steeped in and to an extent limited by traditions/conventions, you are liable to stick to the familiar. Conversely, the New World would've encouraged new designs to respond to the young flux-like society at the time.

I'm not sure about this, but I think it significant that Americans began naming or renaming multi-blade knife patterns in response to their environment and world. Stockman, Cattle Knife, Trapper, Muskrat, Moose, Peanut, Railsplitter, Congress (!!) Copperhead, Coke-Bottle, Canoe, Cotton Sampler etc. These are all Americana, related to the New World not English words connected to say Britain at the time. Not too many Copperheads or Moose stalking the hills of Albion back then, or now:D
 
Some of those names were coined by Sheffield cutlery firms with an eye on the American market, where the vast majority of Sheffield knives went, though Will :thumbup:
 
Yes, makes a lot of sense Jack. But they reflect a supposed Americana and this was no doubt taken up with zeal by domestic US cutlers' marketing depts.
 
I don't want to change the focus to particulars instead of the larger focus... but many of those names are modern collector terms. Some of the patterns predate those names by many decades.... sometimes even 100 years.

Others were terms of art that were widely used in the American industry... and likely well chosen for the intended market.
 
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