Welcome to my long introduction. For the last 20 years (since my late teens) I have been carrying a knife on me each and every day, mostly folders but the occasional small fixed blade, and I did this for the sake of both utility and defense (up until I got my CCW years and years ago) and still continue to carry a knife for utility sake.
For the most part I carried cheaper knives through the years not caring at all about brands and/or steel composition, but about a few years back for some random and mysterious reason I started taking an interest in steel composition. I read data spec sheets from Crucible and any other steel manufacture I could find, read about all the different types of elements that go into a blade and how they function alone and with other elements, going so far as to even read a handful of scientific papers on the subject, read about the different testing methods of steel such as impact testing (Charpy/Izod), etc etc. Put simply, I went OCD on understanding knife steel going as far as creating my own Excel data sheets. Why? Still don't know to this day
After a couple years of this weirdly intense interest and buying a whole bunch of folders (primarily Spyderco but a huge assortment of others), whatever craze had taken me over was gone. I existed in peace for a year or so until again, for some mysterious reason I just randomly started thinking I should buy a knife from the 1800's or early 1900's....and lol, that ended up becoming two, then three, then four, then five.....and we will see where this ends up
My interest in the 19th and early 20th centuries isn't mysterious; I am a fan of history in general and when it comes to American history, the "Gilded Age" has been my primary focus. I have read four separate books that focused on a broad look at this era, as well as another couple dozen that were more specific subjects during or close to this period (like books on the "Robber Barons", advancement of technologies like the Locomotive, subjects on the "Roaring Twenties"). Two of my favorite documentaries are 'Expo- Magic of the White City' and 'The Men Who Built America', both of which fall into this era.
Here I am now on allaboutknives because after the last couple months of my Duckduckgo searches to find information on antiquated knife manufacturers, it kept returning results from this site. The other day I even bit the bullet and ordered a 2nd edition copy of Goins Encyclopedia of Cutlery Markings so I can familiarize myself better. Clearly not overrated but certainly overpriced (cost $130).
My collection is small at the moment and I have been using ebay and Etsy up to now, but I currently have:
- Beaver Falls Cutlery - skinner
John Russell Greenworks - skinner
J.A. Henckels - hunting knife(?)
A.A. Fisher - 2 blade
New York Knife Co Walden (before Schrade) - lockback
New York Knife Co Walden (before Schrade) - pruner
Veritable Choton - 3 blade something-or-another
American Shear & Knife Company - 2 blade