Great info Eric, thanks for posting it!
I know there was a lot of interaction, sharing of production capacity, making of parts, etc between Imperial & Schrade, as you said they were the same company. I also know Camillus made a lot of parts & knives for Schrade and Imperial. What I was told by Tom Williams was there was very little made by Schrade that went to Camillus, it mostly flowed from Camillus to Schrade or Imperial. I have a number of Camillus S-cards detailing knives or parts made by Camillus for Schrade & Imperial. I think in some cases Schrade or Imperial may have provided parts for knives assembled by Camillus, as I seem to recall seeing notations on an S-card that blades on one knife was supplied by Schrade.
This may seem like much ado about nothing, but Camillus was unique in one respect, Camillus was not part of the Imperial Schrade Associated Companies but were solely owned by Albert Baer as of 1963. It wasn’t until 1983 that Albert bought the remaining stock of ISAC and it became a privately held corporation with Albert Baer as the major shareholder. I am not sure but he may have been the sole owner. Camillus was different in the respect that it was sort of Albert’s baby. He had started working there for Adolph Kastor in the 1920s, IIRC. He was the star salesman for Camillus and was responsible for landing the Sears and Roebuck account among others. He had purchased a lot of Camillus stock prior to leaving Camillus around 1940. Camillus was where Albert's career in the cutlery business really took wings and I think he had a great affinity for Camillus.
Although Albert Baer owned a lot of ISAC, he did not own it solely until 1983. I have a number of S-cards dated 1984 and later that shows Camillus produced a number of patterns for the Imperial Frontier line. This date was after Albert Baer owned ISAC. I know some of the Imperial Frontier line was produced in Ellenville and some in Providence also. All three companies produced parts of that line. It is at that point where we see a lot of sharing back and forth of the workload between Imperial, Schrade & Camillus. However in the 1970s that was not the case. From what I have been able to gather from my conversations with Tom Williams, Camillus seem to be a company that ISAC used for contract work, to make parts and some knives, but they were not a member ISAC, I think they were treated as a contractor not a member of the ISAC family.
I could be wrong on this, and am quite willing to be corrected, but based on what I learned from my conversations with Tom Williams Camillus was always treated as a separate entity from Imperial/Schrade. Tom also told me that it was not widely publicized that Albert Bare owned Camillus. Tom said it was kind of hush-hush, so much so that when Albert Baer was not referred by his name at Camillus but referred to as “Mr. B.”
