"Old Knives"

thanks for the comments guys.
fran, i would never tease waynorth, charlie has helped me several times!
blues, well, maybe a little bit of mean streak......
charle, that wolf is 4 1/4" closed and weighs 205 grams, over 7 oz. glad it has a half stop, opening from closed is like setting a bear trap and don't get close to it when closing!

steve, that's a great pruner.
 
Fran that lock-back is fantastic. What type of wood are the scales?

S-K, they are some variety of cocobola/rosewood. A lot of brown and redish tones in them. You have a lot of cool old pruners. Oops.....that describes Johnnie and me. :D

Charlie, Those 'not correct' knives are just the kind to pocket ! :thumbup:

Kerry's knife has me trying to remember an old nursery rhyme. I think it started " There was a crooked man..."

Fran
 
That lockback is really nice.

And S-K, that Harrison Bros Howson pruner sure is a beauty, too. I see quite a few old pruners. I wonder if it is because a lot of them were sold, or because those that were sold were not used hard and worn out.
 
That's an incredible knife, Kerry! At first thought, it looks like a custom, fitted to the stag.
Then, when I thought of those pictures I've seen of rooms full of antlers, it made me think that a good stag cutter with a pattern in hand, could cut quite a pile of near-tips, that would fit with a little trimming. There were a lot more Sambar stags back then. Who knows?
BTW, can you see pins where the butt cap is pinned to the end of the spring??

Charlie...it doesn't look like there are pins(nails) thru the butt cap into the stag. The cap is held in place by the back(horizontal) pin that goes thru the section that is filling the end of the trough.
 
An awsome display of old knives guys. Fran that lock-back is fantastic. What type of wood are the scales?

edited: Charlie... I realise the examples you posted most recently are not quite right. I do like the long nail nicks, especially when they appear on 'original' old jacks.

Kerry, that is a most interesting prunner... a semi custom perhaps? It likely had the trade name of Alpha on the blade at one time... maybe worn away now and the other trademark was the coronette, a five pt crown. Does this appear on the back of the tang? From what I can see of the font on the stamp, it looks similar to this one which I believe dates from circa 1880ish. This knife has a hand-forged spring that tapers to very thin and wide at the butt end and is curved around to fit the shape of the handle. Don't make them like this anymore.


I don't remember any visible markings on the opposite side of the tang but I will give it a good look and see if anything is left. This knife has obviously been buffed to wholaidit!! :mad: and I just want to smack the culprit that did it. :D
 
Just picked this up at the P.O. today.
This is an early example of Schrade Stainless Steel. It's listed in the 1926 Catalog as SS8813, and is a hair short of 4" long. The Jigging predates the fine Peachseed jigging (to the best of my knowledge) of later Schrade Cut and Schrade Walden knives. Stainless Schrade knives from back then did not sell well, so I suspect they are much more rare than standard carbon steel production.
SchradeStainlessStockMark.jpg

SchradeStainlessStockPile.jpg
 
That's a beauty, Charlie. Must be nice to have a knife from the year you were born, huh? :p
 
I don't post here all that often because I don't have that many old classic slipjoints, but recently I acquired this fine old 60's era Copperhead. I gave it a soak overnight in mineral oil, then the old cotton sock treatment, and put a new edge on it. It has great snap and no cracks and will be a favored user.

Just had to share a couple of shots of this kinda old classic with my peeps here. :)

Gotta' love the old ones!

IMG_1945-2.jpg


IMG_1942-2.jpg
 
Nice one, Ford. Too bad they no longer make 'em that way.
 
That's a beauty, Charlie. Must be nice to have a knife from the year you were born, huh? :p

Watch it whippersnapper! I can whip you any - - - -zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz - -
Huh? - - -zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
 
Nice one, Ford. Too bad they no longer make 'em that way.

You know Elliott, I was thinking earlier how nice it could be if this pattern were employed in a Case/Bose annual edition collaboration. It makes a great every day pocket carry. Just my .02.
 
This is my first visit to this forum and first look at this thread. Wow, there is some great stuff here! (Excellent photography too!)

As the saying goes; "William Scagel influenced Bo Randall and Randall influenced everyone else." It was Scagel who is remembered for establishing, some 100 years ago, what has become the standard business template for almost all modern custom knifemakers... one maker working alone in his shop - each knife made by hand and totally unique.

Scagel's knives were what we might now call "organic." To me, the essence of "organic" in this context refers to Scagel's inclination and talent for creatively incorporating aspects of the natural world into the design and execution of his knives. It began with his use of natural materials, and often went beyond the materials into the realm of metaphor and symbolism - as is evident in the knife below.

This unique knife has long been referred to as simply 'the fish knife.' Ed Fowler was so smitten with it that he spent considerable time analyzing it in detail. Ed came up with many important insights which he shared in an article for BLADE magazine some years back. Ed Fowler, for reasons he explains in his article, coined the knife's now 'official' name - Iron Mermaid of the Great Lakes (also the title of his article).

She (Ed's preferred way of referring to a beautiful knife) occupies a special place in Dr. Jim Lucie's mind-blowing collection of W. W. Scagel knives, axes, artifacts and memorabilia.

Photographing these old antique knives is fun and always a challenge. I usually try to create an appropriate context for each knife. In this case I created a 'watery' backdrop apropos of the knife's identity.

orig.jpg
 
Last edited:
I've spent hours looking through these wonderful old knives. This has got to be one of the best threads ever. How could anyone not love these old knives!

Here's one of my favorite old ones - an old Wostenholm, insignificant compared to most pictured here, but it has a blade shape and flow that I haven't seen much and really like. Sorry for the crummy pics.

DSC05286.jpg


DSC05288.jpg
 
As the saying goes; "William Scagel influenced Bo Randall"

I hope you don't mind me contributing a bit to your post, Buddy. Here's one of Old Bill's knives and a few examples of Bo's WWII era Hunters which still exhibit that influence some 6 years after Bo started what initially was just a "hobby"

orig.jpg


standard.jpg


orig.jpg


standard.jpg


Sorry about the crappy photos!

Best,
 
Back
Top