The Puukko

[tongueriver]

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[Arathol]

Found a couple oldies from Iisakki Järvenpää. 7 3/8", both have birch bark handles and brass fittings. One has a decorative leather sheath, the other a working type belt sheath marked Gensco. These were imported in the late 1940s / early 1950s by Gensco Tools in Chicago. They are evidently unused, the one in the decorative sheath still had the brown paper wrapped around the blade. Both seem to have been sitting stored in their sheaths for decades.....
As found.....

size comparison with a GEC 86

After a quick oil bath and clean up

 

[tongueriver]

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[tongueriver]

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[Thomas Linton]

Found a couple oldies from Iisakki Järvenpää. 7 3/8", both have birch bark handles and brass fittings. One has a decorative leather sheath, the other a working type belt sheath marked Gensco. These were imported in the late 1940s / early 1950s by Gensco Tools in Chicago. They are evidently unused, the one in the decorative sheath still had the brown paper wrapped around the blade. Both seem to have been sitting stored in their sheaths for decades.....
As found.....

size comparison with a GEC 86

After a quick oil bath and clean up

The more decorative sheath is a "pahvituppi," a sheath made of paper or cardboard. Finland was almost continuously at war from November, 1939 - May, 1945, and began that period as a small, poor country invaded by the Soviet Union. The exigencies of war made leather unavailable for civilian shoes, belts and knife sheaths circa 1941-1949. To collector, this is not bad thing and helps date the piece. Since many puukot models have been made for a century (IIsakki Jarvenpaa has been making knives - many the same models since 1905), a pahvituppi is welcome as a good clue to the age of a puukko.

The General Steel Warehouse Company Inc., Gensco Tool Division, located in Chicago, Illinois — first at 1830 North Kostner Avenue in 1946 and then at 1832 North Kostner Avenue from 1949 on - imported puukot from Finland from late 1946 into the early 1960s. Gensco also imported several Swedish hand tools including chisels, Sloyd knives, Mora hunting knives, and Bushman Swedish bow saws.

 

[Arathol]

Iisakki Järvenpää began making knives sometime in 1879. He made knives under his own name until ~1899, at which time he was hired as production supervisor at the newly opened Kauhava Puukkotehdas factory. In 1904, due to a number of disagreements with his employers, he left that position and started what we know today as Iisakki Järvenpää Osakeyhtiö.

 

[screened porch]

This just arrived from the bay. Somebody made it from a file and somebody used it. What I thought from the pictures was a different-colored wood is where the paint has been worn off by the edge of somebody's hand. Nice work, Somebody, and thank you.

 

[RayseM]

Pretty cool find screened porch

 

[screened porch]

Pretty cool find screened porch

More Tikkanen -

I call this ~REMINISCING ~

View attachment 1284453

Thank you. Cool picture.

 

[The Zieg]

Pretty cool find screened porch

More Tikkanen -

I call this ~REMINISCING ~

View attachment 1284453

Ha!! I see what you did there!

Zieg

 

[RayseM]

Ha!! I see what you did there!
Zieg

The lights are on at Zieg's house I like the photo even if the allusion is a bit obscure Thanks for noticing.

 

[The Zieg]

The lights are on at Zieg's house I like the photo even if the allusion is a bit obscure Thanks for noticing.

At least you didn't pose a hamburger with a cow!

Zieg

 

[Arathol]

Here's a couple more older knives from Iisakki Järvenpää...
One has a birch bark handle (tuohipää puukko in the old catalogs) with the large pommel knob typical of Kauhava construction (nuppipää), brass fittings on mouth and tip of the sheath (tuppi suu ja karkihelalla, helat messinkia) and a leather button tab.
The other has a curly birch handle (visapää puukko) with an old style small brass ridged pommel, brass fittings on the sheath and a brass button hook, no fullers (uurnatera) on the blade.

They are really small, but every bit as detailed as their larger counterparts

 

[RayseM]

I especially like the birch one

 

[TPVT]

Here's a couple more older knives from Iisakki Järvenpää...
One has a birch bark handle (tuohipää puukko in the old catalogs) with the large pommel knob typical of Kauhava construction (nuppipää), brass fittings on mouth and tip of the sheath (tuppi suu ja karkihelalla, helat messinkia) and a leather button tab.
The other has a curly birch handle (visapää puukko) with an old style small brass ridged pommel, brass fittings on the sheath and a brass button hook, no fullers (uurnatera) on the blade.

They are really small, but every bit as detailed as their larger counterparts

a-ha! thank you. i saw what-has-to-be the top knife at a gun show last weekend. dude was selling it for $90. i had just got there so i thanked him for showing it to me, and started walking around. i never made it back. i wondered what i looked at. the top picture looks very similar, as i recall. the sheath is correct. the etching was the same (i was trying to figure out what it “said” in the fuller, or if it was just a design).

there’s another gun show coming up in a few weekends. maybe he’ll be there again. thanks for posting!

 

[RayseM]

Gone

 

[robinpeck]

 

[RayseM]

Whoa ho robinpeck - nice ones

 

[Elgatodeacero]

robinpeck you have to tell us about that knife and sheath at the bottom. Scary lion head handle and moose sheath? Awesome.

 

[Pt-Luso]