Primble by Schrade?

waynorth

waynorth

Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
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Nov 19, 2005
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Someone suggested to me that Schrade may have made this knife. Its a 4-blade Cattle knife, with oddly jigged bone handles, and is stamped; JOHN PRIMBLE over BELKNAP over hdw.&mfg.co.
If there's anyone out there:rolleyes: , maybe someone knows about the maker, and/or the bone jigging? Thanks,
Charlie
PrimbleSchradeTang.jpg

PrimbleSchrade.jpg
 
My opinion....

Definitely not a Schrade, at least none of the details (tooling, blade grinds, pulls, bone) look like Schrade to me.

Hard to place but a guess would be BOKER USA, possibly Camillus....but would have been pre-WWII knife from either of them since neither showed that pattern in their post-WWII catalogs.

Very nice piece BTW. Some of these contract knives can be tough to figure out.

Based on my observations, BOKER USA made probably 90% of the post-WWII Primble knives, with the balance made by Schrade and Ulster (part of Schrade by then).
 
I don't know about the jigging, and cannot match the exact pattern to a particular Schrade, however the blades individually do match rather closely the ones illustrated in the early Schrade Cut Co catalogs, as does the shield. Schrade called it a "cattleman's" or "Empire" shield at various times. Don't rule out an Ulster origin, however. After 1946, Schrade sold both knives, as well as a few Imperials to Belknap. Perhaps someone with the complete older Belknap catalogs can match it exactly. Belknap was sometimes good about including alpha or numeric cues in their model numbers indicating the origin. Also, other makers did make knives for Belknap, and those blade and shield designs were not entirely unique.

Codger
 
Thanks Knifeaholic, and Codger, and accept my apologies, I forgot to include the rear marking on the main blade.
It is stamped; 3335 over a 5 pointed star.
 
Ka-Bar used a five pointed star to indicate stainless steel 1962-64, but this knife appears older. There was a Star Safety Razor Corp post 1915, formerly Kampfe Bros. These are the only five pointed star stamps I see in Goins.
 
waynorth said:
Thanks Knifeaholic, and Codger, and accept my apologies, I forgot to include the rear marking on the main blade.
It is stamped; 3335 over a 5 pointed star.
Click to expand...

Most likely Boker then....every Primble that I have ever seen that I can trace to Boker via the tooling, has had the star.
 
You seem to have a line on this one. I know very little about early Bokers, and have seen very few. Here is one reason why I mentoned Ulster. This is an excerpt from the Imperial Schrade Associated Companies 1959 year end report:


2u41toh.jpg



Codger
 
Wonderful information! You two need to leave your brains to science! We can wire you. . . . .never mind; sorry, I've been gaping into this computer too long today!
Thanks for applying your experience here, KA and C!
 
KA, did Boker U.S.A. make a lot of contract knives? Were they a "major" supplier/contractor that you know of? Queen seems to do a lot of medium or smaller orders for others; I wonder how they compare??
 
Hi everyone,
I am new here, but I am from the same town as Belknap was headquartered and I was told by a lot of the old timers that the Star on Primbles did indeed mean that Boker was the manufacturer. This is all word of mouth. But I beleive pretty reliable.
 
Every little bit helps! Is there any chance you have access to some pre-WWII Belknap catalogs and can look up this particular knife? SOme time back, at my suggestion, several members purchased copies of old Belknaps, but I don't have anything that predates 1950.
 
Codger,
Sorry, I don't know anyone with any material that predates WW2. The oldest i have personally seen was from the late 60's. I'll keep checking around though.
 
utica cutlery company(kutmaster)they I know they made them
contact.richard joswick the general manger,at utica and he'll
tell ya that.I bought the very last production of them from
richard back in thr late 70's and early 80's
 
Even the ones with the star on the tang, olddog??
 
Here's a shot of the back tang, for everyone's info. Does this confirm anyone's recollections??
PrimbleSchradeBackTang.jpg
 
it's lot older than when kutmaster (utica) made them
but in the 70's and early 80's it was kutmaster
they also made coleman knives before the bought
western,
 
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