Large Crown Cutlery coke bottle knife

[58chevy348]

Just picked up this large Crown Cutlery coke bottle knife. Has beautiful handles (wish the blade was more full), but I plan to leave it just the way it is. Great snap on the blade.

[58chevy348]

I have not been able to find another Crown Cutlery coke bottle knife like this online. Does anyone have info on the approximate dates this pattern was produced?

[Paladin]

Goins says 1900-1930, if made in NY.

Ray

[orvet]

According to “Goins Encyclopedia of Cutlery Markings” the dates of Crown Cutlery Company New York guesstimated to be 1900 to 1930. That is all he has listed on that company.

According to LG4 (“Levine’s Guide to Knives and Their Values”) Crown Cutlery Company was a wholesale importer from Germany and Austria in the 1910s to 1920s. During World War I, (when they couldn’t import knives from Germany) they were a wholesaler having their knives made in the US circa 1916 to 1919. Bernard Levine lists the German made knives as having low collectible value but the ones made in the US have medium collectible value. This information is on page 48 of LG4 and that is the only mention of Crown Cutlery Company I see in LG4.

The other books I have that mention a lot of small and obscure companies don’t list Crown Cutlery Company. I think your best possibility for finding information on Crown Cutlery Company is to give this posting a few days or weeks on AAPK and see if we don’t have someone who collects Crown Cutlery Company knives. They may be able to narrow the date on that pattern a little more than 1916 to 1919; however experience tells me with these somewhat obscure companies like this that a 3 to 4 year range in dating a knife is as close to pinpoint accuracy as one can usually get.

I hope this helps.

BTW, nice looking old Coke bottle, even if it does have a short blade and is a bit beat up. That is pretty typical of these old knives they were kind of the heavy duty knife of their day and the folding hunting knife of their day. Probably the all-time great heavy-duty work & folding hunting knife is the Buck 110. I think one could make the case that these old Coke bottle knives were the predecessor to the Buck 110. There were lots of companies that sold this pattern. Judging from the numbers of these that have survived I would say: A, they were tough and B, they were pretty popular!

[58chevy348]

Thanks guys. It seems very well made. I'm glad to add it to my collection and may try to dig around for other Crown knives for sale.

[steve99f]

That Coke bottle has awesome jigged bone handles!

[tjmurphy]

Those are some great looking handles.

[58chevy348]

I agree--I love those handles! It amazes me they are in such good condition considering the wear on blade and bolsters.