Slipjoint Inventor

[mmarkh]

Who is credited with being the inventor of the slipjoint?

 

[Garonne]

May be Mr Pierre-Jean Calmels who create the Laguiole, see below the link,
they don't precise the date, after 1829 and also it is hypothesized that he is the slipjoint inventor, sorry but the text is in french only, to be continued ...
http://users.skynet.be/lames/laguiole/lagui2.html

 

[pogo]

I assume you mean the slipjoint with the backspring. If you go farther back in history to ancient Rome they had friction folders probebly copied from even earlier designs from other civilizations. So you can see it goes very far back in time. The slipjoint with the backspring is a fairly recent design considering the age of the friction folders.

 

[jackknife]

At a museum in upstate New York, they had some clasp knives from a revelutionary war camp, and they looked just like a slip joint sheeps foot blade. And at the Military Cutlery Museum in Intercourse Pennsilvania, they had a display of 1700's seamans knives. They had alot of stag handles and big slip joint sheeps foot blades. It would seem the slip joint action was common in the 1700's.

 

[jacknife]

http://www.memorialhall.mass.edu/collection/itempage.jsp?itemid=18407

Looks like they were around in the late 1500's.

The Barlow is the earliest I can find with a known maker, but I'm no expert, just Google'd for the answer that's all.

http://freespace.virgin.net/a.data/The%20History%20of%20Cutlery.htm

"The Barlow knife was first produced in England by Obadiah Barlow in the 1600's."

I'm sure there must be others.