Speaking of High Dollar Knives, Anyone Recall The Old Imperial Bowies For $1.00 ?

[Yvsa]

Back in 1953 we lived in a small town on the western side of Idaho called Orofino. I used to tell people that the sun didn't come up until 9:00 a.m. and it went down at 3:00 p.m. because of the mountains surrounding the small town in a small creek bottom.

Way back then the Imperial Knife Company made several cheap pocket knives and a small thin bladed Bowie with about a 5" blade maybe 3/32" or so thick. If it wasn't so late/early I'd get the knife outta the back room and give the precise dimensions but these are close enough.
Back then the little Bowies sold for a $1.00 or a $1.50 or so and were prolific all over the northwest. These were famous little hunting knives for the day and age as though they themselves weren't much they did have an *Excellent Steel* and were most excellently hardened with a good file skating off the edge. Most were sharpened with an average carburundum whetstone.
The idea of the little knives were that they were plenty good enough to skin out a big deer and were cheap enough so that if you happened to lose one it wasn't like losing a $30.00 to $40.00 handmade custom jobber!!!! :grumpy:

The early ones came with real wood handles and would last a surprisingly long while with a little care. But it wasn't long until the Imperial Company started putting cheap plastic scales on in place of the sometimes really pretty wood.
Either way look around today and see if you can even find one and if you do don't faint from sticker shock as to what the cheap but most excellently bladed knives bring today.
I have seen price tags for as much as $50.00 for a near mint knife with wood handles and what was left of the thin cheap sheath was pitiful. I bought one with a busted plastic handle to fix up someday. I have cleaned it up and soldered the guard onto it, not done on the originals and all it needs now is a nice set of handle slabs and a nice little sheath.
I'd just about lay odds that I could get $100.00 to a $150.00 and maybe more on eBay when I get it finished. Not that I'm gonna sell mine, it's goin to one of my grandchildren or great grand children.

I don't know what I gave for mine but I know it was less than $5.00 but it was broke and didn't have a sheath, not that they were worth a flip anyway.

 

[ferguson]

I bought one on Ebay with the pouch on the front for the multibladed camping knife with the screw driver & can opener. Always wanted one when I was a kid, and finally got one when I was 50!

I think it has the same bowie that you're talking about.

Steve

 

[namaarie]

Cool stuff. Yeah, I have grown up in an age where to get anything not made with 420 J2 stainless in a Chinese sweat shop, you have to fork over a tidy sum. Such is life now, I guess. Neat thread, and I'd love to see pics, Yvsa!

Chris

 

[gyr]

"Speaking of High Dollar Knives, Anyone Recall The Old Imperial Bowies For $1.00 ? " - Yvsa

Yeah...I do.....

I bought one back in 1957 or '58- can't remember which now. It was my first "real" (as in fixed blade) hunting knife. It had black plastic (hollow) scale grips, a tan leather sheath ( which soon fell apart) and an oh-so-shiny blade. As I recall it was decently sharp when new.
It went everywhere with me back then. Even to school where we played a game called "stretch" at recess. It cleaned the catfish and trout from the local creeks and ponds. Skinned and gutted rabbits, squirrels groundhogs and 'possum. (Later I learned that a smaller blade made such chores much easier- oh well ) Sharpened any number of saplings for tomato stakes, tent poles, etc.
I learned to sharpen a blade on a carborundum stone with that knife. And how to throw (and not throw) a knife. And the impossibility of keeping a blade shiny if you actually used it. And how to sew the sheath back together after it came apart. Sure got a lot of value for 98 cents. Admittedley I was infatuated with that knife. But I liked it so well that I even bought one for my father a few years later.
Eventually I obtained other fancier knives and passed this one on to my brother. I'm not really sure what happened to it. I think he may have lost it in a move. My father kept his for the rest of his life. He didn't hunt but he used the knife to slaughter and butcher the one or two hogs he raised for the table each year. And those he butchered for some of our neighbors. Dad passed away many years ago but his knife still rests in its sheath in a tool drawer in my mothers kitchen. Every now and then I'll take it out and give it a few light strokes on Dad's old steel. Then wipe a little oil on the blade and return it to its sheath. And while I'm doing that I'll remember the chilly Saturday mornings when Dad and I (and sometimes my brothers) would build a fire out back and process a hog.

Yep....a whole lotta value for 98 cents!!

Thanks, Yvsa, for this walk down memeory lane.

 

[ferguson]

Is this the one Yvsa?

Steve

 

[munk]

I stopped in the small town of Saco, Montana, off US route 2, and there in a pawn shop bought a Imperial plastic handled bowie for 15 dollars. It is in excellent condition, but needs to be sharpened.



munk

 

[Yvsa]

Is this the one Yvsa?

Steve.

Yep, that's the one Steve and a setup that I sure wouldn't mind having!!!!
I don't know how good the steel was/is in the pocket knives as I don't recall ever owning one but I'm sure I probably did at one time or another; I was a true Barlow fan back then.
I really doubt that they will ever be worth much except to a few of us old timers who remember them and know them for a knife that was cheap as all hell but packed a dayumed good steel blade that was properly hardened.
These were made before the idea that a sharpened prybar was the epitome of what a knife should be and for many a folk was the only knife they ever carried in the woods.
A true *Survival* Knife!:thumbup: