SEARS KNIFE WORLD

[Boattale]

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[Campbellclanman]

Steve - Thank you kind Sir.

Incrediblehoke - thank you- yes please post it up.

Red sparrow- Thank you - They have been for a while now.

 

[Campbellclanman]

Boattale - nice group of Sears you have

 

[TheIncredibleHoke]

Here you go Campbellclanman
This purchase (and already a few others) was a direct result of this thread and the “Old Knives” thread. I think I’m off the GEC “every release hunt” and am an official ”old knife” junkie! I’ve been reading so much, and I have a few old catalog reprints on the way. It’s also very cool that so many of these old beauties were made just north of me in the Hudson Valley.

 

[Campbellclanman]

That's a Beauty! Gorgeous Camillus Cattle knife, boy they hit the nail on the Head with their choice of Bone, the colouring, the Jig work etc. A very nice quality Knife, imagine the use that Knife has had and still looks so good and performs so well.

It wouldn't surprise me to see you have coined Liners ?

Thanks for the input of that nice one

 

[TheIncredibleHoke]

That's a Beauty! Gorgeous Camillus Cattle knife, boy they hit the nail on the Head with their choice of Bone, the colouring, the Jig work etc. A very nice quality Knife, imagine the use that Knife has had and still looks so good and performs so well.

It wouldn't surprise me to see you have coined Liners ?

Thanks for the input of that nice one

I can’t believe I’m finally able to contribute to these amazing threads. I really love the coloring and the character and texture of the bone.

And yes sir, coined on the bottom!

 

[Campbellclanman]

That’s so cool.

 

[Cooter Brown]

What a great thread. The influence and pervasiveness of Sears can hardly be overstated. And the quality of these mostly American manufactured knives is amazing.

I recently lucked into a "Carpenter's Knife" that Augie and Campbellclanman helped to ID and date between '58 and '61. An interesting thing I picked up in this thread is that the same knife cost less in 1961 than it did in the late 40s, which if I remember my history was a time of high inflation. Attached is the catalog page from 1961 provided by Campbellclanman .

 

[ISKRA]

This one arrived today. Cleaned it up a wee bit, there's more to do yet though. Sorry for the crappy photo, I can't get decent light today anywhere I go ... But the Craftsman logo is visible. Tang stamp says MADE IN USA. It's a peanut type of knife or small dogleg jack, I suppose. I was surprised to find it has no half stops. Would any of you gentlemen know who the maker is and what period it would have been in?

 

[Campbellclanman]

ISKRA, Nice example,Craftsman as a main Brand name came in late '41- in 1942 it was THE main brand name, and Sta-Sharp ( Camillus) and Chrome Vanadium ( Ulster ) were now sub brand names.

You have the underlined Craftsman Etch- the earlier Craftsman Etch. What makes it hard to define an exact year is at times- like your very nice example there wasn't a number etched on the Knife- making it very hard to find in the catalogs, no number may have meant not shown in a catalog.

Made in the USA. Is too often thought of simply Camillus. This isn't true as Made in the USA this was a Sears owned Brand name, and depending on associated etches with the Made in the USA Tang Stamp would define the Cutler, be it Ulster, Camillus, Kingston and Schrade.

Camillus numbers dropped heavily when Baer purchased Ulster and his relationship was more than strong with Sears, it was a friendship as well, so Ulster numbers climbed as Camillus numbers fell, you see the Chrome Vanadium Etch come in strong at this time- this was Ulsters unique Sears owned Brand name as Sta-Sharp was to Camillus.

I am going to have a deeper dig and try to match that knife of yours, but it doesn't mean to say that your knife was in a Catalog, again the missing number does not help -as there never was a number on your knife and there are plenty of Sears Knives that did not come out with etched numbers.

Side by side comparisons to a Ulster or Camillus or Schrade Knife is next, in saying all this we have to be careful as Schrade knives came in the mix as well.

Time line for your Knife will be 1942 to late 1950's when once again Sears kept the Marketing wheel turning and changed the Craftsman logo to a surrounding Crown.

 

[waynorth]

Made in the USA. Is too often thought of simply Camillus. This isn't true as Made in the USA this was a Sears owned Brand name, and depending on associated etches with the Made in the USA Tang Stamp would define the Cutler, be it Ulster, Camillus, Kingston and Schrade.

That stamp always confused me - now I see why!!
Thanks, Duncan!!

 

[Campbellclanman]

It's darned confusing isn't it Charlie.

 

[waynorth]

It's darned confusing isn't it Charlie.

It helps to have a scholar on our side!!!

 

[Campbellclanman]

I agree Charlie, yourself, Herder and many more other traditionalists in here are just that. me? well I'm the guy running behind you on the Deep Forest Pathway of Knife Knowledge trying to catch up - I can hear you guys, but cant see you for the Trees.

Sounds funny but true.
It's a good place to be because trying to dig for more information is so addictive, lucky for the internet as being over here in new Zealand I couldn't be further away from these areas where the original Cutler firms were, where the local knowledge and also remaining products still exist within those areas to a good degree.

Of course the big Knife shows too that expose so much, but - the all very much more important part is the people like the sorts we have here on the Porch - those great people are so far away as well.

Ok, out into the Garage to replace my Lawn Mower Wheel bearings, and to plan the next mission on our House.

Tomorrow some photo time - its going to rain so I am hoping I get a break to take some shots of Knives.

Thank you for everything charlie and to everyone else.

Have a great day or Evening where ever you may be.

I will throw some more photos up of some more Sears tonight hopefully.

 

[ISKRA]

ISKRA, Nice example,Craftsman as a main Brand name came in late '41- in 1942 it was THE main brand name, and Sta-Sharp ( Camillus) and Chrome Vanadium ( Ulster ) were now sub brand names.

You have the underlined Craftsman Etch- the earlier Craftsman Etch. What makes it hard to define an exact year is at times- like your very nice example there wasn't a number etched on the Knife- making it very hard to find in the catalogs, no number may have meant not shown in a catalog.

Made in the USA. Is too often thought of simply Camillus. This isn't true as Made in the USA this was a Sears owned Brand name, and depending on associated etches with the Made in the USA Tang Stamp would define the Cutler, be it Ulster, Camillus, Kingston and Schrade.

Camillus numbers dropped heavily when Baer purchased Ulster and his relationship was more than strong with Sears, it was a friendship as well, so Ulster numbers climbed as Camillus numbers fell, you see the Chrome Vanadium Etch come in strong at this time- this was Ulsters unique Sears owned Brand name as Sta-Sharp was to Camillus.

I am going to have a deeper dig and try to match that knife of yours, but it doesn't mean to say that your knife was in a Catalog, again the missing number does not help -as there never was a number on your knife and there are plenty of Sears Knives that did not come out with etched numbers.

Side by side comparisons to a Ulster or Camillus or Schrade Knife is next, in saying all this we have to be careful as Schrade knives came in the mix as well.

Time line for your Knife will be 1942 to late 1950's when once again Sears kept the Marketing wheel turning and changed the Craftsman logo to a surrounding Crown.

Thank you very much for all the information, Duncan! I would never have imagined they made such a mess with this. But things all too often aren't simple in the knife world.

 

[Campbellclanman]

It’s not me that holds any information- I wish it was, it’s just time that it takes to look through Sears history.

I don’t think it’s a mess, to me Sears is so untapped.
Sears simply had knife companies contract knives to them, then the consumers buy not a Cutler manufactured knife, but a Sears Knife that was branded as one of the many Sears brands.

I think it’s extremely interesting to have all these mysteries and to have Sears amazing Catalogs that hold a lot of answers to our questions- sometimes giving us more questions

 

[ISKRA]

It’s not me that holds any information- I wish it was, it’s just time that it takes to look through Sears history.

I don’t think it’s a mess, to me Sears is so untapped.
Sears simply had knife companies contract knives to them, then the consumers buy not a Cutler manufactured knife, but a Sears Knife that was branded as one of the many Sears brands.

I think it’s extremely interesting to have all these mysteries and to have Sears amazing Catalogs that hold a lot of answers to our questions- sometimes giving us more questions

That's true, a bit of mistery is fun sometimes and luckily there is information out there that you can access. In my neck of the woods that's sadly not the case. I wish I could find information on knives from former Yugoslavia, especially about the ones stamped Iskra, but there's nothing to go by really. The country not existing anymore doesn't make things any easier either ...

 

[Campbellclanman]

ISKRA, I hope you come across something eventually, have you explored local advertising in that area?

 

[Campbellclanman]

Sears in the later years started to " dry out" in the Knife market, if this was the case in the actual Department Stores- I couldn't guess.

What is one of the attractions to me is the beautifully illustrated Catalogs of the earlier days from Sears, so gone are the days of the tremendous line up of stunning Knives.
The Knife Magazine article on Sears touched a little of just when a did the Composite Handled Knives start taking over the gorgeous Bone Stag or Genuine Stag handled Knives, so, as the Composite Handled Knives came in- there was indeed still some very nice Knives available, but they did start to dwindle down until - well the Catalogs were lucky to have any Knives in them at all.

In the later years Sears did had Parker Knives shown in the Catalogs- around the mid 80's, one of the Parker group Knives for Sears is shown below is a rather attractive stockman that sports some attractive Bone Handles, A knife made in japan as you would expect with Parker Knives, the catalog descriptions of some Parker Knives state: Imported, I picked this example up as it seemed more of an attractive example.

 

[Campbellclanman]

In previous post 108, I shared a photo of a very nice Three Bladed Stockman, Forged USA Tang Stamp - Ulster made, I want to share this again as I took some more detailed Photographs of this Knife and I also wanted to share a very nice Camillus Stockman, High Carbon Steel U.S.A Tang Stamp,wonderfully made I think both of these Knives are wonderfully made - two very nice Knives by these two opposing Companies battling it out for Sears contracts. The Camillus sports Highly Polished Steel Blades and is imo a real looker!

Both of these Stockman very nicely sized knives, the FORGED USA is exactly 4 inches closed, the HIGH CARBON STEEL USA is 3 & 7/8ths.

If you were to choose - which of these two appeal to you more?

Forged USA Stockman:

High Carbon Steel, U.S.A