All About Pocket Knives

My 2 blade large '3 eye' sod buster had the yellow plastic handles. I had one Eye Brand Stockman with the yellow handles that off gassed which surprised me because i had assumed these handles to be Delrin which is perfectly stable. I do not know if all Eye Brand yellow handles are celluloid (does anyone know ?) so rather than taking the chance of off gassing i sent this knife to Kaleb Reynolds, aka "Muskrat Man" for re-hafting.
The Stag he used is some of the finest i have seen on a modern knife. It is a barehead now, no bolsters and i think it suits this knife even better than the factory bolstered version.
Here it is along with my old standby EDC, the regular 2 blade sod buster which is my favorite outdoor work knife.
kj

Posted previously is a request to see BIG Schlieper knives. Here is the largest one i know of, 8 1/4". This is not a display knife. It is a properly tempered work knife along with a pick & tweezers. For comparison is the Schlieper large sod buster, 4 3/4" (or 4 5/8" depending on how you measure it).
kj

Who is it that used to say WOOT! Or was it HET!
Those are some great knives. Exceptional stag and workmanship from Kaleb!

Ray

Thanks Ray. Yes, Kaleb does very fine work. I think this Stag 'Buster looks Great !
kj

That is some beautiful stag Roland. Never seen a sodbuster that large either. If you pulled that out in a store they would call the swat team. lol Thanks for showing.

I love the Ice Tempered Survival knife, beautiful lines.
Onehikes

onehikes wrote:I love the Ice Tempered Survival knife, beautiful lines.
Onehikes

I agree. I always found that to be an attractive knife.

Ray

Was the Survival Knife made in Japan for Schlieper ?
I know there were a few knives (fixed blades ?) that although marked "Schlieper" were made in Japan.
kj

IMHO that knife is a Solingen Schlieper knife from tip to tip. When it came into the line of knives in the 1980's, Hanspeter Schlieper was still the owner of Carl Schlieper. I do not believe he would have contracted such a well built, well finished and hefty knife to any of the makers in Japan. Mr. Schlieper carried the pride of the quality in production of many of the old Solingen makers.


Joe D.

That's a pretty knife Onehikes does it come with a Bianchi sheath?

EyeBJoe, thanks giving the definitive origen of the Schlieper Survival knife.
Do you know which are the knives that Schlieper had made in Japan ? I think it was in 1990's but could have been early 2000's. I have seen only 2, both on ebay, both new high quality knives, and both marked "Schlieper" in big font, easy to see, and "Japan" much smaller not as easily seen.
It would be helpful to have a list of what knife patterns were made this way.
It should be noted that made in Japan does not at all mean lesser quality. Fallkniven, a high end knife company in Sweden has their top line knives (up to $500) made in Japan. Numerous other knife companies and merchant brands do the same for their best knives.
kj

KJ,
Here are some photos of the Japan tang stamp which is a triangle with the Eye Logo (over) XL. The JAPAN stamp is easily seen on a different tang.
I believe these date back to at least the 1970s but I will check my catalogs to see if I can substantiate that.

Ray

PS: I have added photos of pages from a 1963 Forest Cruse publication and it has numerous examples of the Eye XL cutlery.

kootenay joe wrote:Interesting Ray. I thought "El Gallo" was much older than 1950's but i just looked in Anthony Carter's book on German Knifemakers and he says: "Brand names used on post 1945 exports to USA: El Gallo, Fan, Jim Bowie".
So my idea that El Gallo was for export to South America could be wrong.
kj

Per the Joe Dobbs article in Knife World, Forest Cruse registered the El Gallo trade mark in August of 1954. Cruse had taken sole distributorship of the Schlieper knives in 1950 and I am assuming that the El Gallo line 1st appeared on or about 1954. El Gallo disappeared from the Schlieper line in 1970, again per the Joe Dobbs article in KW, 1983.

Ray

Ray, the knives i am referring to are not the odd EYE-X-L knives .The fixed blades i speak of were clearly marked "Schlieper", but no logo and then much smaller "Japan". They are good looking knives, not cheap in any way.
Was Forest Cruse the owner of the "EYE-X-L" Japan brand ?
kj

i love that eye brand moose a moose is one of my all time fav knives and i have never saw an eye brand one before that tells u how new i am but im learning alot on here

A few eyes

bkazz5 wrote:A few eyes

And nice ones they are!

Ray

That is some good looking dark bone bkazz5. It is unique to German Eye seems like.

bkazz5,

Those are real beauties, are they all Stainless?
Someone told me once (maybe Ray?) that all brown bone Schliepers are stainless, and all black bone Schliepers are carbon steel.

Thanks!

Here is one I stumbled upon and didn't think much about until I started looking for info on it. 2 1/2" / 4 blade congress / bone handles. Is this a rare find or just they're all tucked away? I see lots of the bigger congress patterns but no smaller ones like this?

Just Bob, the line of Eye Brand congress pattern knives available when this knife was manufactured started with the 2 1/2 inch models basically in bone, cracked ice celluloid and yellow celluloid handle materials. The 2 1/2 inch model is a bit more rare in that being so small it was not as popular as the larger models. The faint etching on the master blade along with the Eye stamp on the tang qualifies it as being a "Three Eye" Eye Brand knife dating approximately from 1970 through 1981. I think this knife would be a good addition to any Eye Brand collection. There are other Eye Brand enthusiasts here who might have additional info. or examples to add.

Joe D.

I have only one...a mini trapper, of course.

Lovely handles Q.

hey,

would you consider selling or trading that mini-trapper sir? i am hung up on eye brand trappers at the moment, im searching for a replacement 5 1/2 closed stag trapper with gold colored engraving on master blade instead of the usual eye brand etching! i have a small collection of Cattaraugus and Robesons i want to sell or trade? anyway i was looking at a vintage Eye Brand item a friend sent me not to long ago ( old lock and skeleton key ) and noticed the word Garantie above where key hole is! I have a knife on my watchlist on Ebay that has that same word as its tang stamp! The knife is made in Solingen Germany and i was wondering if there were any connection to C Schlieper and Garantie branded knives?

Hello. Just joining AAPK I posted a pic of my Schlieper and was advised to seek more knowledge in this section of the forum. So, here's the knife my dad gave me that was gifted to him over 35 years ago. After reading what I could on the German Eye Brand, I have developed my newest obsession and am seeking to learn more about these as well as other pocket knives. Thanks in advance for everyone's input.