"Old Knives"

To keep the Rogers rolling :) here's an Ulster Knife Co. Jack




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waynorth said:
Nice EJ, Neal! Is that handle material Bone, or LF&C's ubiquitous synthetic?
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Thanks Charlie, and yes, the handles are synthetic and I'm nearly certain hard rubber. LF&C purchased the Meriden Cutlery Company in 1866, and Meridan had been using hard rubber for handle material quite extensively. LF&C didn't start producing or offering folding knives until they bought out Humason & Beckley in 1912. Humason & Beckley had produced fantastic folders with all types of handle materials including stag, bone, Ivory, pearl, woods, and such, but oddly, when LF&C took them over, they almost immediately switched over to all synthetic (molded hard rubber) handles on their pocket knives. Pearl, wood, and metal were still available, but stag and bone were basically gone for use in pocket knives. LF&C did offer fixed blade Bowie type hunting knives in genuine stag for awhile, but those also were switched over to molded rubber. Kitchen and dining knives were offered from LF&C with both stag and synthetic handles, but unfortunately, no stag for folders.
 
Gents I have seen the LF&C Handles ( the Black Composite) described as “ Perfect Stag” .........have you?

Edit : ps Herder Sir - That is a lovey English Jack.
 
Campbellclanman said:
Gents I have seen the LF&C Handles ( the Black Composite) described as “ Perfect Stag” .........have you?

Edit : ps Herder Sir - That is a lovey English Jack.
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Thanks Duncan, and yes, LF&C used the term "Perfected Stag" (synthetic) on some of their folders at least as early as 1915 and up until 1926 when they went back to using the term "Stag" which was really the old "Perfected Stag". They also used the term "Selected Stag" for synthetic stag that looked more like brown genuine stag on their kitchen knives, while also offering genuine stag on some models. Quite common for cutlery companies to play around with creative names. :)

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Thank you Herder! :)
Very much appreciated information- I actually quite like how the dearly American and Sheffield Cutler companies had wars with words with the marketing approach.

Also appreciated is the viewing if both yours Herder and Charlie’s stunning knives!!!!!
Thank you both. :thumbsup:
 
waynorth said:
Thanks, herder. There seem to be a lot of Ulster-stamped scout knives in existence. I wonder if anyone has studied them to determine which were made respectively at Ulster, Schrade, Camillus or wherever?? It would make an interesting study!!
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Charlie- Were you wondering about the Boy Scout knives or just scout knives in general? I believe a majority of the scout knives were manufactured by Ulster under the name "Ulster Knife Co" pre-1941 and "Ulster USA" after 1941 when Baer purchased them from the Divine family. As H herder mentioned, the Ulster name really lost its "luster" by the early 1970's and was no longer used with the exception of their only popular knife remaining at that time which was the actual Boy Scout knives and it sounds like those were made by Camillus. It looks like 1985 was likely the last year for the Ulster Boy Scout Knife.
 
Scout styles or Official Boy Scouts, Kevin.
I'll have to do some looking when I have time. There are Scout styles stamped Ulster, Schrade Cut and Schrade Walden, and Camillus. Are there D-Es (Shapleigh) and Keen Kutter? (styles or Officials?) It's certainly a whole field to study. We know Schrade made some, and Ulster made some. Did someone make Ulsters on contract? That was my main question.
The old question of "Who" made any of them is intriguing!!
 
Wow, what a great tribute page to LF&C with some beautiful examples shown!!! Wonderful knives, North Shore, waynorth, and Tongueriver!!!

I don't know the answer to your Scout knife question Charlie, but I do know that this particular hobby is incredibly interesting because there are so many mysteries and questions yet to be solved.
I'm sure happy to be around a good group of detectives within this forum!!! And, I would sure love to see something in print on harness jacks / punch blades from waynorth and Campbellclanman...
 
waynorth said:
Scout styles or Official Boy Scouts, Kevin.
I'll have to do some looking when I have time. There are Scout styles stamped Ulster, Schrade Cut and Schrade Walden, and Camillus. Are there D-Es (Shapleigh) and Keen Kutter? (styles or Officials?) It's certainly a whole field to study. We know Schrade made some, and Ulster made some. Did someone make Ulsters on contract? That was my main question.
The old question of "Who" made any of them is intriguing!!
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Several companies made 'official' knives for the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts- Remington, Ulster Knife Company before and after Dwight Divine's death, Ulster U.S.A., Camillus, Utica, Schrade Walden (but not Schrade CutCo), and so on. But every cutlery in the world made 'scout' knives, which were not authorized by the scout organizations, and they blatantly advertised themselves as SCOUT knives. There are two excellent books on the subject, neither terribly expensive: OFFICIAL SCOUT BLADES by Ed Holbrook, 2009, 130 pages, spiral bound, and 600 SCOUT KNIVES by Joseph Richard Kerr, 1997, 173 pages, paperback. I have both books but no longer collect scout knives, so...
 
tongueriver said:
Several companies made 'official' knives for the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts- Remington, Ulster Knife Company before and after Dwight Divine's death, Ulster U.S.A., Camillus, Utica, Schrade Walden (but not Schrade CutCo), and so on. But every cutlery in the world made 'scout' knives, which were not authorized by the scout organizations, and they blatantly advertised themselves as SCOUT knives. There are two excellent books on the subject, neither terribly expensive: OFFICIAL SCOUT BLADES by Ed Holbrook, 2009, 130 pages, spiral bound, and 600 SCOUT KNIVES by Joseph Richard Kerr, 1997, 173 pages, paperback. I have both books but no longer collect scout knives, so...
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All true and good points, but I think waynorth might have been asking who would have contracted out to some of the big guns like Case and Remington in providing knives for them?
The large companies were certainly capable to produce any and all of their own models, but we know that they did indeed contract out to other cutlery companies for some of their patterns such as Barlows, Campers, and a variety of other types.
And quite possibly and probably, more than one outside contractor would make a run of the same knives for another cutlery company since we often see minor differences in the same models.
As waynorth said, "Intriguing".
 
Okay, I have a mystery knife. Perhaps one of you wizards will know what it is.
A 3'' horn handled shadow pattern, with two blades and scissors. The only tang stamp is an image of a crown, the letters "I" and "R", and crossed keys or flags, or maybe it's a picture of scissors? :confused:
Look familiar to anybody? Some sort of Royal Cypher?

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