Tell Me About The Senator Pattern?

[zerogee]

Both of these are four blade 3 3/8" and marked on all blades: I*XL George/Wostenholm/Sheffield. Likely made pre 1891. I think the scales are bone ??

I don't know a lot about vintage British knives so please feel free to post any info about any of these knives.
roland

The top one is pressed bone, the bottom one is stag. Unusual to see an older Sheffield knife with a cut center liner like the stag one has -- really sweet knife, even has the thru-the-tang long pulls. It's also unusual in that the main blade and the pen blade are configured like a jack, to allow both to be opened directly right handed.

 

[rprocter]

Thanks Dwight. Very helpful info.
Can you judge age from the presence of pressed bone scales ? i.e. when approximately were they last used by British cutlers ?
roland

 

[zerogee]

Thanks Dwight. Very helpful info.
Can you judge age from the presence of pressed bone scales ? i.e. when approximately were they last used by British cutlers ?
roland

I don't really know when they began using pressed bone -- as for the last dates, certainly well into the 1900's, probably up into the 1930s (as did the Germans). You won't typically see bone on Wostenholm's more "premium" patterns in the old days - in fact, bone wasn't even offered on most of their 4 blade patterns pre-1900 (this seems to be true with Jos Rodgers as well). I would tend to think that the pressed bone Wostenholm senator was made after 1900, whether it has England on it or not (they weren't necessarily marked with England for domestic sales, or for sale in most other countries - that was only required for export sales to the US after 1891).

 

[jamesbeat]

Wow, some great knives here, glad I started this thread!

Pardon my ignorance, but what exactly is 'pressed bone'?
I mean, I know it must be bone that has been pressed but what does this do to the bone? Compress it and make it denser? Emboss a design onto the surface? Make it stronger?
And why did they stop using it?

 

[thawk]

I think the pressed bone was a process used to make the bone look more like stag (in the case of Rolands example), but I'm not sure about that. Certainly used to change the surface textute (like you said, emboss a design)... for appearance purposes.

 

[zerogee]

Pardon my ignorance, but what exactly is 'pressed bone'?
I mean, I know it must be bone that has been pressed but what does this do to the bone? Compress it and make it denser? Emboss a design onto the surface? Make it stronger?
And why did they stop using it?

They just pressed the pebbly texture into the bone -- it's fairly shallow, not as deep as most real jigging (the German pressed bone was similar, but very shallow, with a fine pebbly texture). It's quick and easy and looked pretty good -- plus they already had a number of guys in Sheffield supplying pressed horn scales - I'm sure they had no real problems modifying their processes and equipment for bone. I think WWII put an end to a lot of things.

 

[jamesbeat]

I see, so it was an economical way to texture bone?
I've seen pressed horn before, in fact I have a straight razor with pressed horn scales.
As I understand it, horn is a natural thermoplastic polymer, so when it's heated it can be shaped. Apparently people even used to make windows out of the stuff.
I had no idea that a similar process could be applied to bone.