Undocumented old Jack??

[waynorth]

I have posted this elsewhere, but it seems like it belongs here too.
A hair over 4" long, I have yet to find it in any old catalog, but it appears to be the real thing, to my eyes:

 

[edbeau]

Very nice knife and thanks for posting the pictures. I am sure someone here will help.

 

[tongueriver]

I believe that no Schrade Cutco catalog has surfaced or been reproduced with an original publishing of earlier than 1926. It is unverified and never will be verified, but many Schrade collectors feel that the arched tang stamp pre-dates the end of WWI. If this is true, your knife is at least 8 years earlier than their well-known early catalog, and possibly could date back to 1904. Besides which, there has been a constant trickle of non-catalog knives coming out of pretty much every cutlery since the dawn of the industry, and right up to the closing days of any such cutlery.

 

[Upstream]

I would look at the way the center and end pins are so crudely smashed over and compare that to some known good examples from the same time frame.

 

[glennbad]

Beautiful piece, Charlie. Definitely looks legit to me.

I think your best bet is if you can find old hardware catalogs from the period.

Thanks for sharing this great example!

Glenn

 

[Bigfattyt]

Obviously a fake, and you should send it to me for proper disposal.......

Looks like a great one to me!

 

[ea42]

Charlie, I think Glenn's got the right idea, but even in those the Schrades are hard to come by! I've got and orginal 1932 catalog, which has the catalog E and supplements up to 1932. Pretty near identical to the re-print from A.G. Russell. No sign of it in there either, so it must date to some time before 1926. If the catalogs went alphabetically (just surmising here), where the heck are A,B,C, and D??? I've never seen or heard of anyone who had seen one. Mighty frustrating.

I don't think the peined pins are a sign of an impostor either. I believe that spun pins didn't start appearing until the late 'teens to early twenties (someone correct me if I'm wrong here), before that all the pins were peined, and often rather crudely on the jigged handle knives since they were likely done with a cut-face hammer.

Eric

 

[thawk]

Curious Charlie, I'm referencing a picture from "Elusives" here... I am pretty sure the flat cigar jack here has an arched stamp like your new jack. Take the jack to the right of it. How does the pins look on those two for comparison. Certainly the pick bone jigging on those three knives are from the same era. I find it odd that cigar only has one pin (irrelevant but interesting). #1 and #2 of these three gems seems to have pins quite similar peening styles to your new one.

 

[Dave Thinkstoomuch]

Thanks Charlie and Hal for posting the great pics of these fine Schrades. I'm impressed!