My Herman Williams Knives

[kootenay joe]

Mostly a picture show here. Think i got my first one (61OT) in 2008.
kj

[kootenay joe]

A few more pictures:
the 61OT is 'tweaked out' with a punch secondary and the scalloped version of the Sheepsfoot blade. Substantial Stag as well. This would be a great knife to carry. I intended to but i have so many knives promised carry time that i doubt i'll get to this one.
kj

[CheckSix]

Wow! kj, those are gorgeous! Thanks for sharing them!

[tongueriver]

Yep!

[Dinadan]

Absolutely beautiful! How big is that 1787-1980 IXL? Looks like about five inches closed and with a massive sheepfoot!

[kootenay joe]

Very good guess, it's 4 7/8" closed. This knife is one of the 1980 Schrade-IXL Wostenholm group of knives. This "Texas Stock Knife" is an old original Wostenholm pattern. I like this knife and have a few of the regular (i.e. not H.W.) Schrade-IXL Wostenholm examples plus 2 older Wostenholm Texas Stock knives.
Actually the Schrade-IXL knives other than this Texas Stock Knife were all made by Camillus and then shipped to Britain for IXL to haft (put handles on) and then returned to Schrade for marketing and sales. There is no "Schrade" in any of these knives.
kj

[dweb1897]

Good looking knives Joe..as for no Schrade in IXL's, I'm not sure that is correct...will have to do a little research on that.

[kootenay joe]

The info as to origin of "Schrade-IXL's" came from a post by Phil Gibbs somewhere in BF. I am quoting him quite exactly.
Phil now works for AGR and can be contacted there if someone needs his input.
kj

[dweb1897]

The info as to origin of "Schrade-IXL's" came from a post by Phil Gibbs somewhere in BF. I am quoting him quite exactly.
Phil now works for AGR and can be contacted there if someone needs his input.
kj

Joe,
I don't mean to call into question somebody's research but I'm pretty sure Schrade didn't buy that company just so they could ship knives to them to have handles put on and then have them shipped back. If they had been doing that, seems they might have gone bankrupt long before 2004.

[kootenay joe]

It's not anyone's "research". Phil Gibbs was one of the top 3 people running Camillus. He was part of everything going on at Camillus for many years. When Camillus folded A.G.Russell invited him to join the business as head of design & engineering (or something like that)
As far as whether or not it made sense business wise cannot be judged from here. It might have been part of a much bigger deal, or been in the original purchase agreement, etc.
The Schrade-IXL knives were made at Camillus, hafted in Sheffield and marketed by Schrade in Ellenville. This came from Phil Gibbs whose words i trust fully.
kj

[tongueriver]

It's not anyone's "research". Phil Gibbs was one of the top 3 people running Camillus. He was part of everything going on at Camillus for many years. When Camillus folded A.G.Russell invited him to join the business as head of design & engineering (or something like that)
As far as whether or not it made sense business wise cannot be judged from here. It might have been part of a much bigger deal, or been in the original purchase agreement, etc.
The Schrade-IXL knives were made at Camillus, hafted in Sheffield and marketed by Schrade in Ellenville. This came from Phil Gibbs whose words i trust fully.
kj

I am adding this information to my database. Thanks, Roland!

[dweb1897]

I recently sent an Old Timers Almanac to Schradenut in Australia and he has been kind enough to send me some pics of the I*XL story it contained. This story certainly goes along with Schrade not making the knives at Ellenville, but it appears that Camillus was not the maker either. The blades are tang stamped Sheffield England and the bolsters have English hallmarks. I spoke to Herman Williams about this and he told me that Schrade couldn't get the English workers to assemble the knives to Schrades spec's so a lot of the parts were shipped back to the U.S and assembled here. He said he couldn't be sure if it was at the Schrade plant or the Camillus plant but that both plants fell under the Baer umbrella at that time. Many Schrade knives were assembled at the Camillus plant when workloads made it necessary.

[FatCity67]

It's not anyone's "research". Phil Gibbs was one of the top 3 people running Camillus. He was part of everything going on at Camillus for many years. When Camillus folded A.G.Russell invited him to join the business as head of design & engineering (or something like that)
As far as whether or not it made sense business wise cannot be judged from here. It might have been part of a much bigger deal, or been in the original purchase agreement, etc.
The Schrade-IXL knives were made at Camillus, hafted in Sheffield and marketed by Schrade in Ellenville. This came from Phil Gibbs whose words i trust fully.
kj

kj,

First- Incredible knives.

Second- There are two critical threads at BF to the back story on the IXL knives involving Phil Gibbs. I read and saved them years ago. Jim Taylor-sebago also provides info history on the Rogers- Wostenholm company in Sheffield. Tom Williams-Camco as well comments. BTW Cal you have posts in one of the threads . Bernard Levine is not a big fan of IXLs. To your point since
Phil Gibbs was hired by Albert Baer as well as his Father Tony Gibbs who ran the Wostenholm company I'd say that provides his info on the IXL a measured degree of veracity.

They are quite the read.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showt ... hlight=IXL

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showt ... ht=Schrade

Phil.

[dweb1897]

Fat City, Thanks for shedding light on this murky subject. It appears that we were all partially right and partially wrong...2 Schrades, 2 Camillus and one Wostenholm...quite a collection of makers for one set of knives.

[kootenay joe]

Thanks for bringing up the old BF threads. The second link can only be accessed by a logged in BF member so i cannot read it.
Neat for me to see my own posts from 2007 along with my 'badge of Honor', "Banned", beneath my name. Banned for using the word "bully" in reply to a self serving abusive moderator.

Why is it stated that there were only 2 Camillus knives in this group ?

Quote from Phil Gibbs, BF 2007:
Regarding the IXL Schrade knives, the lock backs were made at Camillus, sent as skeletons to Sheffield where they were hallmarked on the bolsters, the handles were added, & the knives were finished.
I believe it was a set of 5 knives, 2 Camillus, 2 Schrade & 1 Wostenholm.
In my opinion they were well fitted & finished knives."

The lockbacks came in 3 sizes, each with more than one handle type, the "20", "30" & "40". Then there is the Stockman & Canoe of which i thought the Stockman was a Camillus ?
Perhaps "the set" Mr. Gibbs refers to is not the full Schrade-IXL 'set' ?
kj

[FatCity67]

kj,

Yeah sorry about that I forgot Levine's subforum is member only. Basically the same info with lots of debate and info about Rogers-Wostenholm.

-Phil

[truck]

Thanks for bringing up the old BF threads. The second link can only be accessed by a logged in BF member so i cannot read it.
Neat for me to see my own posts from 2007 along with my 'badge of Honor', "Banned", beneath my name. Banned for using the word "bully" in reply to a self serving abusive moderator.

Why is it stated that there were only 2 Camillus knives in this group ?

Quote from Phil Gibbs, BF 2007:
Regarding the IXL Schrade knives, the lock backs were made at Camillus, sent as skeletons to Sheffield where they were hallmarked on the bolsters, the handles were added, & the knives were finished.
I believe it was a set of 5 knives, 2 Camillus, 2 Schrade & 1 Wostenholm.
In my opinion they were well fitted & finished knives."

The lockbacks came in 3 sizes, each with more than one handle type, the "20", "30" & "40". Then there is the Stockman & Canoe of which i thought the Stockman was a Camillus ?
Perhaps "the set" Mr. Gibbs refers to is not the full Schrade-IXL 'set' ?
kj

I'm reviving this thread to ask about a recent acquisition. I have had the redbone stockman from the I*XL set for years. (Shown below.) But I recently got a larger stockman with wooden handles, with a nice display case and papers, that doesn't appear to be referenced anywhere in this thread. (Shown in box below.) Where would this second stockman fit in?

[kootenay joe]

The IXL "Texas Stock Knife" is part of the 1980-81 Schrade-IXL set. It is an old Wostenholm pattern so i assume it was made in Britain, not in USA by Camillus or Schrade.
kj

[truck]

The IXL "Texas Stock Knife" is part of the 1980-81 Schrade-IXL set. It is an old Wostenholm pattern so i assume it was made in Britain, not in USA by Camillus or Schrade.
kj

Thanks!

[Darksev]

I *finally* managed to score some of Herman's work for my own collection!

I happen to check out his Ebay profile the other week and lo and behold, a gorgeous sawcut bone 8OT with a full HW polish job. Just tickled pink to be able to add this to my stockman display. He had an 881 up as well with some jigged bone, kinda sad I missed that one.

also, I'm not saying I had a couple shirts made with a high res version of the old Swinden patent drawings on the back, but I might have done just that

[doglegg]

Love the whittler, beautiful knives.

[tongueriver]