Mystery Knife Guessing Game.

btrwtr said:
Druggist or physicians spatula with a broke blade. The thin flexible part is broken off.
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Could be - Although my photos of that beveled or chamfered front edge aren't the best, if you examine it in person, it doesn't appear broken off at all. And would a druggists or pharmacists spatula be a little narrower? I'm thinking of those Doctor's knife spatula blades. I can't quite picture it being shaped for that task, but that might just be me...
 
Jack Black said:
I think I was wrong about that Chin, struggling with the old mince pies at the moment ;) :D :thumbup:

The 5-in-1 tool does have some similarity doesn't it? I know a couple of people who I think would have spotted it straightaway, not because they know a great deal about knives, but they know a lot about old tools :thumbup:
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No worries Jack, it's not your mince pies, it's the lack of detail in my photo. I should have taken a close up showing that front edge, when I had the knife in front of me.

Yes, I'm hoping someone who has seen one before, or has an exhaustive knowledge of hand tools, like your friends will chime in before long.

I figure if we get stuck, I can consult the Victorian Hand Tool Preservation Society for a definitive answer!
 
Just quoting these photos to reference them on the second page.

Cambertree said:
The first one is a well made tool, blade stamp: J Unley/Sheffield/Eng.

At first glance, the blade may appear broken off, but on closer examination you can see it's definitely made that way. There is a chisel ground edge on the end of the blade.

The handle looks like it's ebony or some other high quality, durable timber.



In hand shot, for scale.


And a close up of the blade stamp.


And the next one is what you could call a pretty specialised tool, for a not so common occupation. I haven't actually seen this one, except in a digitised museum collection, while doing some research on other knives.

It's a home made job.

The only clue I can give is to note the tubes which run down inside the handle and the 'blade'.
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What is the scale of the second one?

So there are tubes running through it and it's old enough to be in a museum...hmmm... Is it actually a knife? Is it an ancient cannula? Is it the tool used to put the creme filling in Twinkies?? ;)

Cannula is my guess if it's small.... the scale of the photo would be helpful.
 
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irona said:
The first one appears to be a painter's knife. Can't say for sure what the second one is
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Ooh, it feels like we're getting close on knife number 1!

Gevo, FatCity67, irona and John - all good guesses. Personally, I'm leaning towards some clay/putty/lead/paint shaping tool myself, rather than a glaziers tool.

Irona, you seemed quite sure of your answer. :thumbup: Do you happen to have any evidence or references that could solve the purpose of this mystery knife definitively?
 
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Knife #1 is a broken or reshaped medical instrument, specifically a lotion spatula

Knife #2 is a metal honeycomb uncapping knife, probably steam powered?
 
For as much as we all love knives today, cutlery was taken to a whole other level in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Specialty knives and blades were made for everything from any possible food category to all the different trades. And not just one style or pattern was made for a specific purpose, but a half dozen or more slightly different shapes or sizes were offered for the same use. Cutlery catalogs from around the turn of the 20th century could easily have 100 to 200 pages of knives with a dozen or more knives shown per page, needless to say, a lot of knives and uses. So, the patterns and possibilities of knives from that era are almost endless. Enclosed are a few picture examples of some interesting blade shapes for specific purposes which include leather working, apple peeling, potato cutting, and a putty knife. These few examples represent just a taste of what existed within their own categories. I have not found a match yet to the first knife shown but believe it falls into the "putty" or "glazier" category as others have suggested.








 
FatCity67 said:
#2 some kind of agricultural harvesting knife like asparagus or honey uncapping.
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Arathol said:
Knife #2 is a metal honeycomb uncapping knife, probably steam powered?
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FatCity67 and Arathol - I'm gonna call this: You, my friends are officially Champions of Obscure Knife Lore!

Number 2 was not an easy knife to guess at all - being homemade, and not too detailed a photo on the 'blade'.

Yes, it's an apiarist's honey uncapping knife!

It's from the Beechworth Honey Archive.

A steamhose would be attached to the tubes on the end of the handle and, once heated, 'used for removing caps from individual cells in one sweep across the frame. This exposed the honey before the frame was placed in the extractor.'

(And apologies - I see the tube ends are actually metal, not rubber.)

Apparently earlier versions would just be long bladed knives, heated in water before use, and later evolutions of the concept use electricity for heat.

https://victoriancollections.net.au/items/51db8d352162ef047c2fbb64

I have to ask, have you seen both of the suggestions you made in action, before? I've never heard of an asparagus knife - I would have guessed that some thin, stainless blade with maybe a pruning shape would be used for that.

Anyway, well done!

Charlie, you get the Conan Doyle Deductive Reasoning runners up award for working out how the tool would likely function. You may officially wear your Deerstalkers cap for the day in recognition of your sleuthing!

TPVT - you got close with your reasoning, you were just at the other end of the temperature spectrum, my friend.

Alright, now all you gurus of the Porch Brains Trust need to wow us by producing some definitive evidence or knowledge that will help us to work out what Knife No. 1 was for!
 
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herder said:
For as much as we all love knives today, cutlery was taken to a whole other level in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Specialty knives and blades were made for everything from any possible food category to all the different trades. And not just one style or pattern was made for a specific purpose, but a half dozen or more slightly different shapes or sizes were offered for the same use. Cutlery catalogs from around the turn of the 20th century could easily have 100 to 200 pages of knives with a dozen or more knives shown per page, needless to say, a lot of knives and uses. So, the patterns and possibilities of knives from that era are almost endless. Enclosed are a few picture examples of some interesting blade shapes for specific purposes which include leather working, apple peeling, potato cutting, and a putty knife. These few examples represent just a taste of what existed within their own categories. I have not found a match yet to the first knife shown but believe it falls into the "putty" or "glazier" category as others have suggested.








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Wow, Herder - great photos from your outstanding catalogue collection there. I love those patterns - to me they represent a zenith of hundreds, or in some cases, perhaps thousands of years of collective wisdom and experience to create a Perfect Hand Tool for a very specific purpose. I'm guessing some of them would still be great for people who use handtools for those tasks today.

Thanks so much for looking those up and sharing them with us. :thumbup:

______________________

Ok, I think we're closing in on Knife No. 1! The winner will need to present some kind of evidence or actual knowledge or experience about this knife for us to call it, though!
 
Thanks and yes, there were so many great hand tools and cutlery items that were lost to the winds which would certainly still be useful today.
It is encouraging though to see many crafts and art forms being revitalized around the world.
 
Cambertree said:
Alright, now all you gurus of the Porch Brains Trust need to wow us by producing some definitive evidence or knowledge that will help us to work out what Knife No. 1 was for!
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You've got me obsessing; searching Google Images for all kinds of vintage tools that I think it could be:
Crown molding plaster knife? Glazier knife?
Nothing is an exact match, but I'm having fun looking at pictures of old tools. :D
 
Hickory n steel said:
My dad used to make stain glass art , and he says that nothing like this knife was used.
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Nice line of investigatin' there Hickory n Steel, so it's not a leadlighting type tool.

Does your Dad's knowledge extend enough into the glass shaping side of the craft for him to say whether it may or may not be a glaziers tool?
 
r8shell said:
You've got me obsessing; searching Google Images for all kinds of vintage tools that I think it could be:
Crown molding plaster knife? Glazier knife?
Nothing is an exact match, but I'm having fun looking at pictures of old tools. :D
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Excellent, r8shell - and I'm betting you have all sorts of cool lines of inquiry opened up on the 'net, given your Craftly Interests. :thumbup:

It'll be great if you find something. I'm betting its something like Herder said though, and it's part of some array of dozens of special, forged tools for some trade or other, which may not even exist now...

I'm also wondering if the makers bladestamp could begin 'J Oxley', instead of 'J Unley'...
 
supratentorial said:
So there are tubes running through it and it's old enough to be in a museum...hmmm... Is it actually a knife? Is it an ancient cannula? Is it the tool used to put the creme filling in Twinkies?? ;)
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LOL! Good questions to determine the nature of that Apiarist's Uncapping Knife, too Jake. :thumbup:

And yes, it really sits at the edge of what you could describe as a knife, at all, I think you're right.

In trying to imagine it, knowing what it was, I envisaged two pieces of flat sheet metal as the 'blade' sandwiching a couple of steam hose lines running down
through the handle to the tip. And maybe soldered together around the edges, perhaps.

In its designed purpose of separating matter from matter and exposing the tops of the waxy honeycomb cells before processing for honey, I think it is fair to say, it is definitely 'A Knife', though. :thumbup:
 
Finally think I have this photo thing figured out on this forum. Here is the blade I was talking about earlier. Really gets us no closer to the answer but see how close the construction is to the Sheffield knife.
6DB677B3-B90A-4864-ADB3-51F066FF049F_zpszdvtwvni.jpg
[/IMG]
 
Cambertree said:
Nice line of investigatin' there Hickory n Steel, so it's not a leadlighting type tool.

Does your Dad's knowledge extend enough into the glass shaping side of the craft for him to say whether it may or may not be a glaziers tool?
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Sorry, but he just worked in stained glass art as a teenager took a class on it for a while with his cousin.
 
herder said:
Thanks and yes, there were so many great hand tools and cutlery items that were lost to the winds which would certainly still be useful today.
It is encouraging though to see many crafts and art forms being revitalized around the world.
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You're so right.

There's actually an annual country fair here in Victoria called the Kyneton Lost Trades Fair. I'm not sure, but I guess there might be similar events in parts of the US and Europe. There's definitely a large reservoir of skilled old time tradespeople here, many from old British trade and craft traditions.

I went one year, camping around and exploring the old goldfields around there, while I was out there, and it was very interesting.

It was good to see the booth run by Adam and Terri Parker from the Australian Knifemakers Guild seemed surrounded constantly by a crowd of people, three deep. I remember also being impressed with a Cordwainers stall of awesome handmade leather shoes, and a fletcher making arrows, and a whole stall of ornate Corn Dollies and information about that ancient rural tradition.

I think I've got some photos somewhere, I'll email you some - maybe put some up in The Lounge later...

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp...are-trades-20160313-gnhwbu.html?client=safari

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp...rades-fair-20160310-gnfaqk.html?client=safari

http://www.losttrades.info

Um, so back to the knives -

Herder my friend :), I think you may have 'dobbed yourself in', as we say here.

I think I might nominate you to find and put up an image of the next obscure knife, for us to guess the purpose of, once we've identified this one accurately.

(That is, if you want to, of course! :thumbup: )
 
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