Your Oldest Traditional Knife

How old is your oldest traditional knife?

  • 0-2

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 3-5

    Votes: 1 1.0%

  • 6-10

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 11-20

    Votes: 4 3.9%

  • 21-40

    Votes: 10 9.8%

  • 41-60

    Votes: 21 20.6%

  • 61-80

    Votes: 8 7.8%

  • 81-100

    Votes: 21 20.6%

  • 101+

    Votes: 37 36.3%
  • Total voters
    102
Nothing too old. The oldest I can say for sure is the Loewen Hippekniep that I bought in 1971. I have a flea market Imperial TL-29 that by the tang stamp could be anywhere from 1956 to 1988, but I have no idea where it falls.

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Bartleby said:
Is this one a Camillus? This looks very similar to the Camillus version of the 2 blade Navy jack knife made for issue during WWII.
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Yes. It's a Camillus. It seems that the pattern was used by Camillus for quite a few years before it started being used by the military. This particular one has a very old Camillus tang stamp.
 
Buzzbait said:
Yes. It's a Camillus. It seems that the pattern was used by Camillus for quite a few years before it started being used by the military. This particular one has a very old Camillus tang stamp.
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That makes sense, as the early wartime military specifications were generally based on requisitioned existing civilian patterns. Nice pre-war example, thanks!
 
All,

This is one of the best threads yet! The stories these blades could tell. Our Collecting of these old pocket knives wasn't even a remote thought when these tools were produced. Instead of a trip to Walmart it was likely to the mercantile to acquire a new tool for a task that needed to be done.. TD
 
Here are a few more, all around 100 years old or older, Walden Jumbo jack, Ulster pruner that has an Ellenville NY tang stamp that puts it around 1890, Winchester dog leg jack, an Ulster Eureka and a Challenge jack with sheepsfoot blade. The focus of my collecting is in finding good condition vintage knives.
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Very interesting thread, Greg! :cool::thumbsup:

Here's a similar thread that might be of interest: http://www.bladeforums.com/threads/the-oldest-knife-ive-got.1471559/ (A search shows such threads showing up periodically, but the older the thread, the fewer viable photos it has, and that diminishes some of the charm.) What follows is essentially a cut-and-paste of a post from that thread.

Although I don't know the exact ages of many of my knives, I'm quite sure this is my oldest. It's an EC Simmons Keen Kutter (thanks, Mark). With the help of a couple of BF members (http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...r-knives?p=16117830&highlight=GT#post16117830), I found out that it's probably from about 1930, a budding knife with a spey blade and cocobolo covers (whether it looks like it or not ;)).
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- GT
 
An old trapper that belonged to my maternal grandfather. Not sure of the age. Tang stamp is High Carbon Steel USA.
I edc'd this for many years. The scales fell off and were lost. I'd love to get some new scales on it.

 
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I also forgot I have a an old Normark of unknown age and origin I also know next to nothing about the maker.
I hope to get some images I can share of the two and give a little of the story with them.
 
That Wostenholm is neat indeed, Rick! These are the knives that keep me going to flea markets. :D

A few more examples: The Kabar is pre-1950, I think. The Robeson Shuredge used to be a maize knife, and I haven't figured out how old it is, but someone sure used up a lot of its blade.(So much in fact, that I believe the nail relief was added by a previous owner to access the blade.)
 
Butch said:
An old trapper that belonged to my maternal grandfather. Not sure of the age. Tang stamp is High Carbon Steel USA.
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I have a very old Camillus-made scout knife, manufactured for Sears and Roebuck, with the same tang stamp.
 
I have a little LF&C pen knife with celluloid covers (thanks, Mark). I read somewhere that Landers, Frary, and Clark made pocket cutlery from 1912 to 1950 (can anyone confirm that?), so the knife must be at least 67 years old, and at most 105. I don't know how to narrow that range.
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- GT
 
george65 said:
I've got a couple more that might be older, but this is the only one I have pics of...it's from the mid 1800s

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Wow, that looks like an actual split-spring whittler. Who's the maker?
 
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