"Old Knives"

ken erickson said:
Nice looking pen Vince, thanks for sharing. What strikes me about this one is how a basic knife with straight lines, symmetrical frame, two spear shaped blades, master and pen, can still come across so classy! Love the bone, color and jigging also.

Ken
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Great pen knife. One of the nice things about the jigging is it is proportionate to the size of the knife.
Finer pattern on a finer knife.

Nice Southington, John. Ebony swell centers are a class act also!
 
Picked this up at blade last year.

It is an XX era with the original finish.

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Yup,

Big old slab of petrified wood. Good eyes navihawk.
(Part of my mispent youth was spent in old mines and rock collecting. :D)
 
Gus, The petrified wood is great, but I really like that XX Toenail it's a dandy, I mean a DANDY.....
 
Thanks, when I saw it I was pretty sure at what I was looking at. Took it to a couple of guys that would know beyond a shadow of a doubt to confirm that the knife had not been touched.
 
Great knife, Gus! And it's nice to know that no-one has stepped on your toe!




I know . . . .grooaaann!
 
Bastid said:
Yup,

Big old slab of petrified wood. Good eyes navihawk.
(Part of my mispent youth was spent in old mines and rock collecting. :D)
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I had a sience teacher in High School with a passion for geology.

Pretty sure these are old. When they made knives to go on the end of watch chains.

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3-5/8" closed
Again,not my knives,pretty cool & interesting,just sharing & adding,enjoy...
-Vince

Quoted...

"These knives often were included inside fancy fruit baskets"

"In the late 1800's materials like bone, ivory, tortoise and pearl were plentiful and relatively cheap compared to today. Synthetics like celluloid, bakelite and nylon were yet to be invented. These natural materials, for the most part, were used where we would generally use a "plastic" today. If this knife were being made today, it would be injection molded in three pieces: the body, the blade and a single pin. In each cycle of the press, a couple dozen of each large part would be ejected. This would happen 4 or 5 times a minute. the parts would then pass to assembly where they would be put together and the single pin would be welded in place using ultrasonics. It would be quite servicable and cost mere pennies per piece. I much prefer the way this was made, where one skilled tradesman took some ivory and fashioned it into handles, another took some cow bone and carved it into a blade complete with a swedge and a long pull, another took some of that bone and made a spring for the knife. Then a hand assembler took the parts, fit them all together with nickle silver pins and made sure it snapped open and closed properly just like the pearl and silver fruit knife it was designed as an inexpensive alternative to would ... when stainless steel had yet to be invented. These were also used as paper knives or letter openers. Some of the most richly grained and colored ivory I own. The light orange color you see is accurate. How this one survived in one piece, I'll never know.

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Add another to the list of those who just learned something.
That is a real interesting knife, and backstory. Thanks for sharing!
 
The master blade on this one is stamped Royal Brand, the pen has a four-line Camillus stamp. Is this a reblade, or did Camillus make these?
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Wow that one is NICE!! :thumbup:
-Vince
 
Charlie - That is the first time I have seen that particular shield on a knife that was not a Challenge, or a possible Challenge contract. It would be interesting if it was. Camillus did a lot of contract work, but it would be a reversal of the normal situation for them to contract. Of course, stranger things have happened in the knife world.

Also - Are my eyes mistaken, or are the handle pins made of two different materials?
 
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I've found a number of old knives with mixed pins. Usually brass to hold the covers to the liners and steel for the spring pins. Gave up long ago thinking that was a reason to suspect tampering.

Fran
 
Brass for the covers, steel for the "function" pins, spring and assembly. Is your backspring pin steel, John?
I have another Camillus knife with that shield; same jack, wood handle, and spear blade instead of the clip.
 
Here's the spear jack, along with the clip and same shield. All brass pins on this one, and crossed-sword tang stamp. Blade is down some, not too bad.
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Hope you can see the stamp - it's a bit light.
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