Old Cattle Knives

[doglegg]

A 4 blade Wilbert cattle knife I recently overhauled. Only one I have ever seen.
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OC, great save and beautiful antler. As always, great work

[OLDE CUTLER]

A 4 blade Wilbert cattle knife I recently overhauled. Only one I have ever seen.
IMG_5616.JPG

That is a real beauty!!! I don't know what the "before" look was, but it is certainly impressive looking now.

Before pic.

[doglegg]

That makes your restoration even more impressive.

[Ivoryman]

Schrade Cut Co.

[DM11]

Schrade Cut Co.

Verah nice!

[ken98k]

This is a very nice pattern of knife to carry. It is not quite as bulky as a scout/utility knife in the pocket yet it still has several blades to use.

Here are a couple old premium cattle knives

I see quite a few different configurations here in this thread What is a "cattle knife?"

[doglegg]

Schrade Cut Co.

Lovely and useful knife Iman. Love those bones.

[Steve Warden]

This is a very nice pattern of knife to carry. It is not quite as bulky as a scout/utility knife in the pocket yet it still has several blades to use.

Here are a couple old premium cattle knives

I see quite a few different configurations here in this thread What is a "cattle knife?"

Back on page 2, 7th post from thawk;

thawk
Re: Old Cattle Knives
Post Mon Oct 01, 2012 5:35 am

According to BRL (From page 284 of Levines 4th Edition) here is the definition of a cattle knife. And then some. Good reading.

CATTLE KNIVES

THE CATTLE KNIFE is a heavy duty three-bladed pocketknife, ordinarily 3 5/8 inches or 3 3/4 inches long. Some are junior sized, as small as 3 1 /4 inches. Others are as large as 4 1/2 inches (such as the Case 94s). A very few cattle knives have four blades, and those are the most popular with collectors.

As the name suggests, the cattle knife was designed for work on and around livestock. The type seems to have been introduced in about the 1870s.

The Standard Cattle Knife has the same round-ended equal end shape as the equal-end jack, and was probably derived from that Common Jack Knife shape. At least 90% of cattle knives are standard equal-ends, but a few have been made in other shapes.

These include:
the "Premier" or serpentine;
the "Eureka," or swell-center serpentine;
the "Balloon" or straight swell-center.
the "Jumbo" or heavy sleeveboard;
the "Canoe," which looks like its namesake;
the "Surveyor," sort of a swell-center canoe;

Two-bladed versions of these knives are found in Jack Knives and in Double-End Jack Knives.

The master blade of a cattle knife is most often a spear blade, although many, including most Case cattle knives, have clip master blades. A few have sheepfoot master blades.

The second blade is usually a spey, while the third can be a sheepfoot, a pen, or a punch.

An uncommon version of the cattle knife is the three spring, with a separate spring for each blade. Most of these are swell-center serpentine "Eurekas" Three-spring cattle knives, especially junior-sized ones, are sometimes misnamed "three-spring whittlers," a contradiction in terms.

The "premier" or equal-end serpentine cattle knife was the ancestor of the more slender Premium Stock Knife, introduced in the 1890s. Premier Cattle Knives have spear master blades.

Stock Knives have clip master blades. Some transitional cattle knives are slender like stock knives but have spear master blades. During the First World War both Camillus and Simmons Hardware sold 4 1/4-inch wood-handled equal-end cattle knives to the U.S. Army Signal Corps. In World War H, Camillus made a hone-handled equal-end cattle knife as a "utility knife" for the U.S. Army Air Corps. Plain celluloid and bone stag are the commonest handle materials on cattle knives. Fancy ones were made with patterned celluloid, or sometimes even pearl. Neither wood nor genuine stag handles seem to have been used on cattle knives after about 1930.

Image
3 5/8" Cattle Knife

Image
3 3/8" Cattle Knife
Hal

[OLDE CUTLER]

I picked up this Keen Kutter knife at our local gun show over the weekend. I was digging thru a box of knives that a guy had for $8 choice and found it, but was not quite sure what it was. I used the mechanical pencil that I had in my pocket to take enough grunge off the tang to tell it was a Keen Kutter and the bone was intact, so I bought it. When I got home and cleaned it up however, it began to seem like somewhat of a mystery. I am posting it here because the blade layout is similar to some cattle knives I have, a clip master, spay, and awl. It is marked with the Keen Kutter E. C. Simmons tang stamp, is 3 and 5/8 inches OAL, has 3 springs. Like many cattle knives however, it is not an equal end, but a serpentine swell center with a sleeve board look to it. The blades are in good shape, the spay has been sharpened more than the others, and the awl is totally intact. It has somewhat of a whittler layout, the master blade falls in between the 2 smaller blades, but it definitely is not a whittler. In looking thru the post above this with the summary of identifying terms, maybe it would qualify as a Eureka Cattle knife. Or maybe not.

[New_Windsor_NY]

I.....

OLDE CUTLER, that is a VERY G@@D LKING piece of pocket cutlery.

[Ridgegrass]

An old George Wostenholm, I*XL with blades stamped. J.O'.

[BWT]

Nice JO

[Waukonda]

An old George Wostenholm, I*XL with blades stamped. J.O'.

Great oldie, J.O'.

[stockman]

I picked up this Keen Kutter knife at our local gun show over the weekend. I was digging thru a box of knives that a guy had for $8 choice and found it, but was not quite sure what it was. I used the mechanical pencil that I had in my pocket to take enough grunge off the tang to tell it was a Keen Kutter and the bone was intact, so I bought it. When I got home and cleaned it up however, it began to seem like somewhat of a mystery. I am posting it here because the blade layout is similar to some cattle knives I have, a clip master, spay, and awl. It is marked with the Keen Kutter E. C. Simmons tang stamp, is 3 and 5/8 inches OAL, has 3 springs. Like many cattle knives however, it is not an equal end, but a serpentine swell center with a sleeve board look to it. The blades are in good shape, the spay has been sharpened more than the others, and the awl is totally intact. It has somewhat of a whittler layout, the master blade falls in between the 2 smaller blades, but it definitely is not a whittler. In looking thru the post above this with the summary of identifying terms, maybe it would qualify as a Eureka Cattle knife. Or maybe not.
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Call that what you want, I'd call it a very nice old knife!

Harold

[Reverand]

I was digging thru a box of knives that a guy had for $8 choice and found it, but was not quite sure what it was... the blade layout is similar to some cattle knives I have, a clip master, spay, and awl. It is marked with the Keen Kutter E. C. Simmons tang stamp, is 3 and 5/8 inches OAL, has 3 springs. Like many cattle knives however, ... maybe it would qualify as a Eureka Cattle knife. Or maybe not.

I see a few knives, in-person and in pictures, that defy our "standard categories".
I would say that it IS a Cattle knife, but also IS a Whittler. But "Cattle Whittler" sounds a bit ... disturbing.
Still, that one is a beautiful knife, and the fact that it does not fit into any one category makes it even better to me.
I am glad that you rescued it!

[FRJ]

I picked up this Keen Kutter knife at our local gun show over the weekend. I was digging thru a box of knives that a guy had for $8 choice and found it, but was not quite sure what it was. I used the mechanical pencil that I had in my pocket to take enough grunge off the tang to tell it was a Keen Kutter and the bone was intact, so I bought it. When I got home and cleaned it up however, it began to seem like somewhat of a mystery. I am posting it here because the blade layout is similar to some cattle knives I have, a clip master, spay, and awl. It is marked with the Keen Kutter E. C. Simmons tang stamp, is 3 and 5/8 inches OAL, has 3 springs. Like many cattle knives however, it is not an equal end, but a serpentine swell center with a sleeve board look to it. The blades are in good shape, the spay has been sharpened more than the others, and the awl is totally intact. It has somewhat of a whittler layout, the master blade falls in between the 2 smaller blades, but it definitely is not a whittler. In looking thru the post above this with the summary of identifying terms, maybe it would qualify as a Eureka Cattle knife. Or maybe not.
IMG_5890.JPG
IMG_5891.JPG
IMG_5893.JPG
IMG_5894.JPG

I think you got a jewel there.

[wlf]

Great knives OC and John.

[OLDE CUTLER]

Thanks for the comments. I did not realize that it was a 3 spring cattle knife until after I got it home and started cleaning it up. It was exceptionally dirty with an eon of pocket lint inside the blade well. Also exceptional is the fact that the awl is not broken off like oh so many cattle knives are.

[OLDE CUTLER]

In checking out my supply of POS knives for the upcoming exchange, I realized that I had a knife in the box from last year that I was going to redo. It is a Jim Dandy cattle knife that is tang stamped Kutmaster. The black handle material was broken or missing and the shield was nearly worn smooth. I had a couple of pieces of stag that were too small for anything else, so I used them up on the rehandle. Hard to beat a stag handled cattle knife.

[doglegg]

In checking out my supply of POS knives for the upcoming exchange, I realized that I had a knife in the box from last year that I was going to redo. It is a Jim Dandy cattle knife that is tang stamped Kutmaster. The black handle material was broken or missing and the shield was nearly worn smooth. I had a couple of pieces of stag that were too small for anything else, so I used them up on the rehandle. Hard to beat a stag handled cattle knife.

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Hard to believe that knife was ever in a POS box. What a great job OC! It is a Jim Dandy for sure now. Those horse collar folks never gave away anything that beautiful. Hard to beat a stag handled cattle knife indeed.