Schrade-Walden Bud Grafting Knives

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kootenay joe

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The Schrade-Walden Bud Grafting knife is a 4" Equal End Double End jack knife. One end has a Sheepfoot blade and the other end has a Spey blade. I have only seen these with imitation ivory celluloid handles. The Spey blade seats low so there is a cutout in the liner at the Spey blade nail nick.
Here are a few examples:





Of the 6 knives shown, only 4 are Schrade-Walden. Can you tell which 2 are not Schrade-Walden ? knives are in the same order in both pictures.
kj
Edit to add: will take pics with blades open in the morning & then post them here.
 
I'll just say 4 and 6, since those pins looks the most patina'd
 
Glenn, thanks for participating. You are correct about # 4. Here is a picture with master blade open, knives in same order. You can just make out the tang markings.



kj
 
Robert, here is a close up of #'s 2 & 4:



And here is how the rest of these knives are marked:



I am sure these were all made by Schrade-Walden.
So, how did it come to be that a knife made by S-W is marked "J.A.Henckels/Germany" ?

kj
 
While they look identical, I believe I see a slightly different placement of handle rivets on the Henckels knives, FWIW. They are a few thousandths of an inch farther from the bolsters.
I can draw no conclusion yet, but it wouldn't be the first time a manufacturer "reverse engineered" someone else's pattern!;)

Also note, the brown spot on one of Henckels' handles, and the rust-colored haze of oxidation on the other's bolster. Those are both signs of inferior Celluloid!:eek:
 
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Thanks for the voice of deep experience Waynorth. Someone in this Schrade forum has many of the old Schrade stamping dies. I wonder if a Henckels die is there ?
kj
 
First of all, those are nice and interesting knives; thanks for showing them. I think, without any specific evidence, that several companies at home and abroad made that pattern, as it is a useful tool by many florist and agricultural workers. Nothing really proprietary about it; Schrade, in fact, may not have been even close to being the first company to market it. I suspect that a perusal of some of the catalog pages (shown as a 'sticky' thread in the TRADITIONAL subforum of Bladeforums) might turn up some from other companies. As a sidenote, Schrade Walden (1947-1973) continued to make that knife, but it had been made much earlier by the parent company Schrade Cutco (1904-1946) and is shown as a cut in the catalog pages on Larry Vickery's site, http://www.collectors-of-schrades-r.us/
 
It has always been that knife manufacturers made knives for each other, like Camillus made Bucks and Westerns. My bet is that knives identical to these Schrade-Walden knives but with some other USA markings were all made by Schrade-Walden. That said i have not seen any knives of this exact pattern except Schrade-Walden and Henckels.
Waynorth's observation that the handle pins are in very slightly differing positions could indicate that Henckels did make the knives with their branding on it. However this seems to be the only difference. The thickness of blade stock and length of the blades is the same in both.
Is it possible than when manufacturing liners, a run could have occurred in which the holes for handle pins was, let's say 1/32", off from the last run of those liners ?
I have never been in a knife factory so i don't know how parts were made other than in runs of 1000 pieces or more each.
If you have any examples of this knife with a branding different than these 2 brands, please post it.
kj
 
kootenay joe said:
It has always been that knife manufacturers made knives for each other, like Camillus made Bucks and Westerns. My bet is that knives identical to these Schrade-Walden knives but with some other USA markings were all made by Schrade-Walden. That said i have not seen any knives of this exact pattern except Schrade-Walden and Henckels.
Waynorth's observation that the handle pins are in very slightly differing positions could indicate that Henckels did make the knives with their branding on it. However this seems to be the only difference. The thickness of blade stock and length of the blades is the same in both.
Is it possible than when manufacturing liners, a run could have occurred in which the holes for handle pins was, let's say 1/32", off from the last run of those liners ?
I have never been in a knife factory so i don't know how parts were made other than in runs of 1000 pieces or more each.
If you have any examples of this knife with a branding different than these 2 brands, please post it.
kj
Click to expand...

Schrade made knives for endless organizations, hardware stores, etc. They also traded work, parts, employees, etc. back and forth within the family (Ulster post 1940, Imperial, and the cousin, Camillus). It is highly unlikely that they did contract work for other cutleries beyond this family. Western of Boulder, Colorado and the various CASE family entities had a similar sort of trading arrangement. Camillus, by the way, did not make knives for WESTERN. They owned WESTERN at one point. Meanwhile, you asked for other examples. This pattern has been made by at least some cutleries for a very long time and possibly by most of them. It did not take me long to find one example from a Sheffield, England catalog printed in the 1860s. If you go (in Bladeforums) to 'Traditional Folding Knives and Fixed Blades,' then to thread 'Vintage Knife Catalogs and Ads (images only), then to post number 39 by Jack Black, and scroll down within the Saynor, Cook and Ridal catalog to page 22, the second knife from the right, pattern number 349, is your baby.
 
tr, good find on your part ! i see the knife you refer to. size is not stated. is it exactly 4" ? threaded bolsters on this SCR example, but that is not a real difference.
I have a fair collection of Henckels made folders (made = pre 1960) and one feature unique to Henckels manufacturing is thickness of blade stock. Except for the Gents type knives, the blade stock is thicker than that used by any other knife manufacturer.
All 6 knives shown above have the same blade thickness and it is the same as other S-W folding knives. This might be a clue but not proof, of manufacturer.
I did once see a picture in this forum that showed a big pile of stamping dies that came from the Schrade Ellenville factory. I would like to know if a Henckels die is in there.
Regarding Western, i thought Camillus made knives for them for years before taking over the company ?
kj
 
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2dca9t0.jpg


2d98dy0.jpg


Not great pics, but the owner claims he bought these from Schrade personnel, the one knife is clearly an 825 SS with Walden stamps, and a Henckels logo on the shield. The owner has an enormous Schrade collection.

This owner claims that the other knife was a sample for Case made by Schrade. It does not look like a Schrade punch, but it does look like an Ulster or Imperial.
 
thawk, thanks for posting these 2 knives. The Henckels shield on a S-W knife makes this thread more intriguing. As a side note: i have never seen a Henckels made knife with their twins logo on the shield.
The mystery just deepened !
kj
 
thawk said:
2dca9t0.jpg


2d98dy0.jpg


Not great pics, but the owner claims he bought these from Schrade personnel, the one knife is clearly an 825 SS with Walden stamps, and a Henckels logo on the shield. The owner has an enormous Schrade collection.

This owner claims that the other knife was a sample for Case made by Schrade. It does not look like a Schrade punch, but it does look like an Ulster or Imperial.
Click to expand...

That thar be some pretty solid evidence, Hal; I never woulda thunk it. :thumbup:
 
KJ. while the knives look similar the tangs are quite different. Note the curve up to the kicks on the Schrades versus the straight line on the Henckels. That shape is engineered into the blanking dies. That alone would lead me to believe that the knives (or at the very least the blades) were not made at the same factory.

Eric
 
Eric, thank you for this help. I had not looked at the tangs but now i see the difference.
I now agree with tongueriver & waynorth that Schrade-Walden did not make these Henckels branded bud grafting knives.
From now on i will be a 'kick looker' when comparing knives.
kj
 
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