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Queen Cutlery fakes?
- Thread starter Bfishes333
- Start date
With Queens past business history and their hit/miss QC issues.. I cant see there being fakes..Just sayin..
John
I've never had a Queen made knife that had to be sent back. I've handled many a new or used Queen made knife that'd I'd of been happy to take home if I didn't already have too many knives
It's a tragedy they closed and a bigger loss to US industry than the closing of Schrade or Cammilus. Give 'em a break, no need to speak ill of the dead. I'll bet there are Queen workers who took pride in their company up until the bitter end
Rookie82
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That is a good tang stamp. That old tang stamp chart was missing a lot of information, and other parts of it were inaccurate. The Queen Historical Society is working right now to put together a new chart that has over 60 different stamps on it spanning from 1890 till 2018. Your tang mark is on the new chart.
Rookie82
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Everything is saved and is being worked on. The Queen website was given over to the Queen Historical Society, and they are working on putting up all info related to Schatt & Morgan, Queen City, and Queen Cutlery. The plan is to make it a huge knowledge website dedicated to historians and collectors.
yablanowitz
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I believe I have one just like that. From what I recall of what I read a few years back, there were a few years when Queen wasn't stamping the tangs at all, and I don't think they even etched the carbon steel blades.
yablanowitz
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Until someone proves otherwise, I'd say it is a real Queen.
Rookie82
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Queen didn't use tang stamps from 1961 to mid 1971. They just etched the Queen name/logo onto the blade, and sometimes etched the pattern # also. From first looks it seems good. Can you tell if the handles are real bone or delrin? I think Queen made a switch to Delrin material styled as imitation Winterbottom during that time period.
dsutton24
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I've never seen a tang stamp reference for any brand of knife that was 100% correct. There are always variables. Things like who did the stamping, the condition of the stamp, which stamp was used, the size of the tang all play, how well struck the die was, etc. all play into what the tang stamp looks like. Also, many of these charts are made up after the fact, sometimes years later. Often times the charts are composed by collectors who may not have any access to records from the manufacturer, so inferences are made, which become 'fact' after a while.
In recent years Buck and Case have had easy to date tang stamps. They both do a pretty good job, but there are still problems now and then, and their older knives are often hard to date. Many makers were haphazard throughout their lifetime. As unlikely as it may seem to us, most knives produced over the years were utilitarian things, so accurate dating down the road wasn't a great concern for manufacturers.
Lastly, you can never say never when it comes to knives, or so it seems. Every collector who has been at it a while has an oddity that shouldn't exist, but is the genuine article. Often times parts were found in dark corners and got made into knives. Or, warranty repairs mated parts that wouldn't normally go together.
In recent years Buck and Case have had easy to date tang stamps. They both do a pretty good job, but there are still problems now and then, and their older knives are often hard to date. Many makers were haphazard throughout their lifetime. As unlikely as it may seem to us, most knives produced over the years were utilitarian things, so accurate dating down the road wasn't a great concern for manufacturers.
Lastly, you can never say never when it comes to knives, or so it seems. Every collector who has been at it a while has an oddity that shouldn't exist, but is the genuine article. Often times parts were found in dark corners and got made into knives. Or, warranty repairs mated parts that wouldn't normally go together.
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That is great news. For now there is a bunch of stuff that was captured by the crawlers of Wayback machine (web.archive.org) if you know how to use the site, it can take a little getting used to the layout and functionality there. https://web.archive.org/web/2015051...80/uploads/2015_Queen_Cutlery_Co._Catalog.pdf
Rookie82
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dsutton24
that is certainly correct. Guys working in the shop can make lunch-break knives out of leftover parts and some Frankenstein knives have walked out of factories. The former Master Cutler of Queen who worked there for over 40 years said that when an order came in, you just go to the rack and grab whatever tang stamp you want. There was no rhyme or reason to it, especially in the 50's and 60's and early 70's. Knives were made to be used until they were unusable, and then you buy another. Nobody at that time ever considered that someone would collect them, or that they would have value over time, so they didn't care about keeping records of when things were made, or dating the knives.But the goal with the Historical Group is to show every catalog from every year, show every pattern ever made, show every handle type ever used, show every tang stamp ever used, show ever shield ever used, etc. It is going to be an ongoing project for probably decades to come.