What exactly makes a knife traditional?

[5K Qs]

Thanks GT, it's a great subforum to be apart of. I knew it was a very close knit group of people here who from what I've seen are some of the least selfish and most genuinely generous people. Thanks again to all on here for being so welcoming!

+5K :thumbup:

...

The forum software and Search functions are idiosyncratic enough, including the software's archiving of relatively recent posts, that searching here successfully is as much an art as it is a science....

Amen!

...I've intended to put together a blog entry-- complete with pictures!-- to aid Searchers, but continue to get sidetracked. If and when I do, I'll be sure to let y'all know.

~ P.

Much appreciated!!
And as long as we're passing along helpful hints for navigating the technical challenges of the forum, here's a super hint I received from Crazy Canuck a couple of weeks ago. I used to get double posts about half the time I posted (and muttered stuff a lot stronger than Frank's Razzle Frazzle), but then Crazy Canuck suggested avoiding "Post Quick Reply" and using the "Go Advanced" button instead. I haven't had a double post since I started following CC's advice!

-GT

 

[Easyrider]

This has been a great read for me, thank you. I am glad to see there is some flexibility
in the rules to allow something like the Northwoods Indian River Jack that has a modern
stainless steel.

Thank you everyone for this thread.

 

[knarfeng]

This has been a great read for me, thank you. I am glad to see there is some flexibility
in the rules to allow something like the Northwoods Indian River Jack that has a modern
stainless steel.

Thank you everyone for this thread.

You missed my post. The use of stainless steel as blade steel for a pocket knife dates from the late 1920's. That makes stainless blade steel a traditional material.

"Celluloid" is classified as a "plastic". So is rubber.
There were early versions of hard rubber as far back as the 1850's. Celluloid materials were first developed at about the same time. Both were used for knife handles by the early 1900's if not before.

Modern plastics similar to Delrin date from the 1950's.

Stainless steel has been used for pocket knives since the late 1920's.
Proper quench protocol for stainless blade steel became common in the US by the mid 50's to mid 60's. (The Germans developed it in the 1930's.)

All of this puts "modern materials" within the time frame we think of for Traditional Knives.

To look at it from a different angle:
I grew up using traditional patterned pocket knives (1950's and 1960's). I never owned a bone, stag, or wood handled traditional pocket knife until the 21st century. All my knives had plastic handles. Most had stainless steel blades. So it's going to be really hard to argue to me that only natural materials can be used as traditional pocket knife handles or that only carbon steel can be used for the blade.