I don’t know if many posters here are familiar with the Tyne knife. They’re very far from common here, but since the pattern was made by a number of Sheffield cutlers, I occasionally come across one. This one below, which bears the scars of being aggressively cleaned, was made by Wostenholm.
A nicer example I think, is this one (below), belonging to ScruffUK, and made by J.Howarth.
The Tyne is not a pattern I particularly care for, but I find it interesting, not least since I have not yet been able to find a definitive answer as to why it is called a Tyne knife, and particularly why it has that name stamped into the handle.
According to some, it is named for the River Tyne in North-East England, but from what I have read is unsupported by argument. There is indeed a River Tyne here, indeed the word ‘Tyne’ means river. There is also an area called Tyneside and a place called Tynemouth (I received some books and a letter from a friend there only today), but it doesn’t necessarily follow that a rather unusual-looking pruning knife made some distance away in Sheffield, should be named after the river, the area, or the place.
Hopefully somebody here will have an answer to my question, and be able to support it.
Personally, I wonder if there is a link between the knives and the once-huge Tyne Foods company (now owned by Kraft), which gave away branded gifts to its customers.
If that was ever the case the pattern does not appear to have always been exclusively produced for Tyne, since it appears in this Wostenholm catalogue (originally posted by Smiling-Knife I think) for example.
Anyway, I'd be interested to hear some informed opinion about this, and please feel free to share any other examples of the pattern.
I look forward to being enlightened.
Jack
