Parker Cut Co. Question

D

dalee100

Joined
Mar 15, 2008
Messages
1,539
Hi,

I've been seeing a few of these Parker's Gentleman Stock knives floating around lately. And they are represented as having 440C stainless blades. Is this true? If it is, I might pick one up for a user if the price is right.

I do understand from perusing Mr. Levine's forum that Parker is mostly noted for his lack of business acumen.

Thanks!
dalee
 
Dalee, I think Jim Parker, if that's who you are referring to, had TOO MUCH business acumen! He siphoned huge amounts of money from customers, investors, and governments.
 
Hi,

Well, yeah that's what I understood. I was just trying to be polite about a side remark.:) Momma always said.....:D

dalee
 
do'nt think he ever used 440c. after he & frost started with schrade [think that was 2or3 yrs.]parker went by himself & was the man whom brought the flood of japanese to u.s.early knives had good quality & cost nothing. the finish & stainless was very decent. having met the man in person my opinion of him was not positive. every partnership he formed split in less than good feelings.
 
Hi,

Thanks Dennis! I kind of figure they aren't either. But I'm not all that knowledgeable about these things. The reverse of the blades are clearly marked Surgical Steel Japan. So to me that could mean anything from old, used Honda bumpers to 440C.

Well, maybe if it can be had for RR prices it might be fun to check out.

dalee
 
the stainless parker used for the most part [ from 70s thru 80s] was better than mainstream america. case, schrade, cammilius,etc were not noted for edge holding.in fact i used a parker 2 blade bullet & an eye brand hunter to process an elk in 83. at this time there was no ats34, vg10, swedish fine grains, d2 ,[ other than dozier was poor .] jimmy lile d2 may have been an exception. i had lile knives but never tested them.a side note was that lile forged many of his early blades.early 154cm was without a good heattreat in most releases. if you wanted a cutter you went with a good forger or eye carbon. most parker stainless outcut puma stainless. of course early henckel carbon & puma carbon were world cutters. puma construction exclisped most at this time. sorry this is getting to be a history lesson.
 
Please continue, professor. I like it.
 
Hi,

Like knarfeng I'm always up for some class time.:) I do remember that in the mid to late '70s and early '80s 440C was considered advanced steel for knives. Plain carbon still ruled the roost.

Thing is, I remember all stainless steels being listed as surgical stainless. I still harbor a prejudice against stainless to this day.

dalee
 
dalee100 said:
Hi,

Like knarfeng I'm always up for some class time.:) I do remember that in the mid to late '70s and early '80s 440C was considered advanced steel for knives. Plain carbon still ruled the roost.

Thing is, I remember all stainless steels being listed as surgical stainless. I still harbor a prejudice against stainless to this day.

dalee
Click to expand...

Identifying what steel is used in a knife is a relatively new concept. I don't remember seeing much info about what alloy was in the blade until maybe the 80's. It was either "stainless" or "surgical stainless" or "carbon steel".

For instance, while it is now relatively common knowledge (at least among knife folk) that Schrade used 440A for stainless blades, they marked the knives "Schrade +". The average knife buyer did not have access to the catalogs that identified what "Schrade +" was. It was just "stainless steel" to them.
 
dalee100 said:
Hi,

I've been seeing a few of these Parker's Gentleman Stock knives floating around lately. And they are represented as having 440C stainless blades. Is this true? If it is, I might pick one up for a user if the price is right.

I do understand from perusing Mr. Levine's forum that Parker is mostly noted for his lack of business acumen.

Thanks!
dalee
Click to expand...

Depends on the knife, Parker's usual "go to" steel was 440A, but he did every once and a while offer a premium line that was 440c.
 
the term surgical stainless was 1st used by forrest & mark cruse to denote the eye stainless. they were 1st to name a pattern "sodbuster" the cruses did'nt trademark the names & case really jumped on the sodbuster label while parker & many others grabbed the surgical moniker. it certainly sounds better to say surgical instead of stainless. mods might blow this out but i'll tell the war story anyway. in 70s parker brought in fillet knives that cut like crazy. they ran about 5 or 6 $ after a few months my brother & i bought several doz. to gift to friends since they were so good for the money . parker had waited to build a market then put out thousands of same looking knives that would'nt cut for crap. we knew we were burnt but not a lot of money involved. about 6or 7 yrs. later parker formed a partnership with a damascus forger named fain edwards. they produced an entire line of cutlery with damacus blades. the 1st. batches were decent cutters & once again we ordered about 20 of these for us & friends. i sent some to a buddy in wash. he said they were worthless. i took a damacus from the latest batch & opened an envelope. the knife went totally dull after one letter. we knew we had been PARKERIZED ONCE AGAIN. after that we were very voceferious as to our opinion of james [f.u.] parker.
 
Hi,

Interesting tltt. How does one identify which lines? Or did Parker just mix it in the better models without marking it.

I think that's why I still don't much care for stainless steels yet today, knarfeng. You just never knew if it was going to be any good or not. I did use my share of Schrade+ stainless. Simply because the stores stopped carrying the 1095 carbon steel Schrades after a while. I honestly got good service from it too. But it never had the same feeling as good plain carbon.

dalee
 
DennisStrickland said:
the term surgical stainless was 1st used by forrest & mark cruse to denote the eye stainless. they were 1st to name a pattern "sodbuster" the cruses did'nt trademark the names & case really jumped on the sodbuster label while parker & many others grabbed the surgical moniker. it certainly sounds better to say surgical instead of stainless.
Click to expand...

Hi,

Now that's very interesting Dennis. Back in those days I always associated the surgical steel moniker with Japan. So I assumed it was a marketing gimmick from Japan. Interesting to know that it started with the Eye Brand along with Sodbuster name.

Thanks!
dalee
 
dalee100 said:
Hi,

Interesting tltt. How does one identify which lines? Or did Parker just mix it in the better models without marking it.

I think that's why I still don't much care for stainless steels yet today, knarfeng. You just never knew if it was going to be any good or not. I did use my share of Schrade+ stainless. Simply because the stores stopped carrying the 1095 carbon steel Schrades after a while. I honestly got good service from it too. But it never had the same feeling as good plain carbon.

dalee
Click to expand...

Unless you have a catalog, it's a bit hard, he didn't mark them. The higher end models were taken to a much higher finish. Lots of mirror polishing, he also seemed to favor darker woods and lots of pearl on his more expensive lines.
 
I wouldn't have anything to do with any knife that had any association with Jim Parker. Period. Even if I got one of the rare good knives, I wouldn't tolerate the association with the man himself. Too many knives out there make by great guys and great companies.

Parker once said his greatest investment was his engraver (he used it to create fakes). Read the thread in Levine's sub-forum if you haven't.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top