Codger_64
Moderator
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2004
- Messages
- 62,324
Beginning with Adam in the Christian Bible, men have always had the insatiable drive to name things. Adam, it is written, named the animals that God brought before hi, and since then it has been given to all mankind to put a name to a thing as a way of identifying that thing, in a way, posessing it.
Astronomers named planets, stars, and consellations, explorers named islands and even continents. Naturally, scientists named their discoveries and inventors their latest inventions. Naming a thing took on a new meaning with modern marketing. Anyone who watched Roadrunner cartoons saw that every device the writer could imagine for the Wiley Coyote to use on Roadrunner bore the brand name "ACME", a name like "Peerless" harkening back to the early Sears Roebuck catalogs. Names and trademarks on those names became quite important to manufacturers and craftsmen. The term "patent" goes back to early England and Royal sanction , permission for the exclusive right to a name, a trade, or land.
Names given to knives, like any other manufactured item, play a big role in their marketing. With a marketing revolution in the latter part of the past century, fueled in part by televison, radio, and magazines, advertising demanded that products have memorable, catchy names, or names that envoked an open or subliminal connection in the mind of the audience with the product and quality, or value, uniqueness, or even nostalgia.
Schrade Walden Cutlery produced several new patterns of knives in the early to mid sixties that were unique enough to be patented and were good sellers from their introduction, but as time went by sales became fairly static as generations of new buyers came into the market. What worked for an earlier generation no longer caught the imagination and dollar of a newer generation who grew up with television and the new type of advertising aimed at them. Albert and Henry Baer were no marketing slouches, so they began giving names to their knife patterns, as well as the traditional pattern numbers on boxes, advertising, and catalogs.
The 15OT was first produced in 1964 with no name. In the 1965 catalog, it was refered to as "Hunter". It was in 1974 that the 15OT was seen with the name "Deer Slayer" and in 1976 the name was made one word, "Deerslayer" which was used as long as the pattern was made. The 165OT first appeared in the 1967 catalog and received it's name, Woodsman" in 1974. The previous year, 1973, the 152OT was introduced as the "Sharp Finger", later revised to one word like the Deerslayer. Most patterns introduced post '74 received names as they were first produced, such as the "Golden Spike".
While this list is by no means complete, it is an interesting exploration into Schrade history, and knife history in general. Many companies have since used the names "Deerslayer", and "Woodsman", as well as "Pathfinder", all used by James F. Cooper in his Leather Stocking Tales, a five book series about the fictional "Natty Bumppo" who dwelled in the wilds of what is now New York State during the era of the French and Indian war. Mr. Cooper was himself the son of the founder of Cooperstown New York. The names Mr. Cooper gave his hero throughout this series reflected his occupation and prowess at survival and woodsmanship, and the admiration of the British soldiers and Delaware tribes he lived and worked among. It is this link that I feel inspired the Baers to use those names in the first place.
Codger
P.S.- Many younger folk will have no idea who J.F. Cooper or Natty Bumppo were, since the serious study of American classic literature has long since fallen by the wayside, but a few of us Old Timers still re-read these timeless tomes.
Astronomers named planets, stars, and consellations, explorers named islands and even continents. Naturally, scientists named their discoveries and inventors their latest inventions. Naming a thing took on a new meaning with modern marketing. Anyone who watched Roadrunner cartoons saw that every device the writer could imagine for the Wiley Coyote to use on Roadrunner bore the brand name "ACME", a name like "Peerless" harkening back to the early Sears Roebuck catalogs. Names and trademarks on those names became quite important to manufacturers and craftsmen. The term "patent" goes back to early England and Royal sanction , permission for the exclusive right to a name, a trade, or land.
Names given to knives, like any other manufactured item, play a big role in their marketing. With a marketing revolution in the latter part of the past century, fueled in part by televison, radio, and magazines, advertising demanded that products have memorable, catchy names, or names that envoked an open or subliminal connection in the mind of the audience with the product and quality, or value, uniqueness, or even nostalgia.
Schrade Walden Cutlery produced several new patterns of knives in the early to mid sixties that were unique enough to be patented and were good sellers from their introduction, but as time went by sales became fairly static as generations of new buyers came into the market. What worked for an earlier generation no longer caught the imagination and dollar of a newer generation who grew up with television and the new type of advertising aimed at them. Albert and Henry Baer were no marketing slouches, so they began giving names to their knife patterns, as well as the traditional pattern numbers on boxes, advertising, and catalogs.
The 15OT was first produced in 1964 with no name. In the 1965 catalog, it was refered to as "Hunter". It was in 1974 that the 15OT was seen with the name "Deer Slayer" and in 1976 the name was made one word, "Deerslayer" which was used as long as the pattern was made. The 165OT first appeared in the 1967 catalog and received it's name, Woodsman" in 1974. The previous year, 1973, the 152OT was introduced as the "Sharp Finger", later revised to one word like the Deerslayer. Most patterns introduced post '74 received names as they were first produced, such as the "Golden Spike".
While this list is by no means complete, it is an interesting exploration into Schrade history, and knife history in general. Many companies have since used the names "Deerslayer", and "Woodsman", as well as "Pathfinder", all used by James F. Cooper in his Leather Stocking Tales, a five book series about the fictional "Natty Bumppo" who dwelled in the wilds of what is now New York State during the era of the French and Indian war. Mr. Cooper was himself the son of the founder of Cooperstown New York. The names Mr. Cooper gave his hero throughout this series reflected his occupation and prowess at survival and woodsmanship, and the admiration of the British soldiers and Delaware tribes he lived and worked among. It is this link that I feel inspired the Baers to use those names in the first place.
Codger
P.S.- Many younger folk will have no idea who J.F. Cooper or Natty Bumppo were, since the serious study of American classic literature has long since fallen by the wayside, but a few of us Old Timers still re-read these timeless tomes.
