Unknown folder

C

Carbon

Joined
Dec 5, 2019
Messages
11
Sorry for the repost, I think maybe I posted this in the wrong section earlier, does anyone possibly know anything about this folder ?

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Qy8jzd5igZfuDgn76

The blade is unusually thick at 6/32" and looks to be of forged high carbon steel.

The blade was given to me by my father a few years back, he owned it for about 30 years and can't remember exactly how or where he got it, he was told by old timers in the shipyard we both use to work at, that these were possibly handed out from tool room around 70 to 50 years ago. Another guy I worked with in his 70's told me that it looked like one of the knives that were hand made in the shipyard a LONG time ago and issued at the tool room. The shipyard me and my father worked at was over a hundred years old so it could very well be true.

I'm a welder and worked for the "Steel Department" allot of tools owned by our department were scribed "Steel" , it almost looks like the word "STEEL" was punched into the blade, I'm not sure about any of that though, trusting the memory of a shipyard worker from that many years back is kinda sketchy haha.

Thank you
 
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I would guess that the shipyard old-timers know what they're talking about. Do they remember what job these were issued to do?
 
scrteened porch said:
I would guess that the shipyard old-timers know what they're talking about. Do they remember what job these were issued to do?
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Yeah it seems that way as I've never personally seen another like it, it was definitely built to last, there is zero wiggle or slop in it when folded or extended, the tolerances are ridiculously tight and take allot of effort to open or close.

I assume they would have been available to every craft for any shipyard cutting duty, the shipyard can be a dangerous place to wander around without a torch and a blade.

That being said, it almost looks like it says "STEEL" on the blade so they might have only been made for "Boilermakers Union" we are the "Steel Department" or "Steel Shop" and made up of Fitters, Burners, Riggers and Welders.
 
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The steel pivot pins and handle shape look French or German to me. Just a WAG--KV
 
That is a heavy duty knife! For me, one of the best parts about vintage traditional collecting is trying to find out the history of our finds. You are fortunate to get as much information as you have on a knife like that! If only we could get them to talk...
 
Ernie1980 said:
That is a heavy duty knife! For me, one of the best parts about vintage traditional collecting is trying to find out the history of our finds. You are fortunate to get as much information as you have on a knife like that! If only we could get them to talk...
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Well now that you put it like that, maybe not being able to ever fully figure it out is a treasure in itself, thanks man, I mean posting it on this website of a knowledgeable community of collectors and nobody saying " yeah that was made by . . . ." Is gonna have to be the reward in itself !

Like you said "I'm lucky to have the back story from my father and coworkers" even cloudy as his and others memory are, AND let's not forget the knife itself, the blade seems even more unique to me now !

Do you think looking at it, it does look hand made then? I've never seen or held a pocket knife/folder with such a hefty thick blade and am I correct in assuming the pockets or voids seem to be from hand forging using carbon or no ?

Thanks again to you and anyone else who took a shot at chiming in here, seriously much appreciated :)
 
I'm leaning more toward French than German now because of a pic I saw in a book of a French knife with that same handle shape. So now it's just 1/2 WAG.(:--KV
 
Carbon said:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Qy8jzd5igZfuDgn76

I guess the cloud file only last for so long and I'm not yet aloud to post photos directly here for all to see as I'm not a member with full privileges, hope this link I just made works for you.
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If you upload the photo to a photo hosting site, such as Imgur, you can paste the BB code here, and your photo will display :thumbsup:
 
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That's a very interesting-looking knife. The only traditional folders I know of with blades of that sort of thickness (and they are not quite as thick) are heavy Navy Rope Knives, and a series of knives which were made, on an annual contract, by Joseph Rodgers of Sheffield, for the General Post Office in England. They were used by Telephone Engineers for day to day tasks including batoning through lead-covered cable, much in the way that a fixed-blade Hacking Knife is used :thumbsup:

fOTlYFP.jpg


NggfePv.jpg


The one above has a blade 1/8" thick, and is 4 13/16" closed. The Hacking Knife below, has a blade which is 1/4" thick.

Uyzi0IV.jpg
 
High quality Pakistani folders can be well made with thick blades and stout wood and brass construction.

For $10 Bernard Levine will sell you his opinion. You could ask to have this thread moved there. It's the titular forum for ID. That forum has a lot of good-eyed collectors who don't come here often.
 
Thanks fella's, I just got back to work ( been laid off 6 months) going on my 17 year in the ship yards as a Boilermaker welder/fitter, as soon as I get this first check and the kids covered for Christmas l think I'll do just that and join/support the forum so i can get some better insight on this knife, even if it's just to reaffirm that it's a home made job from the 40's, 50's made in the ship yard here in Seattle, we have and always have had immigrants from all over, including Eastern Europe, allot of these guys were shipyard workers, machinists or steel workers/fabricators back in their home country so even if it has attributes of foreign lands it's not necessarily still to far off to have been made here in Seattle in this Shipyard.

Anyhow thanks again.
 
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