I have a couple of knives with that same tang stamp but they don't have the glimp shield like the one in the OP. In fact these are both federal shield's but two different types of federal shield. This is the date of this tang stamp?
CAMILLUS/CUT.CO./N.Y. U.S.A.
Does anyone else have examples of this tang stamp?
I have no firm time frame for this tang stamp. I would think it is definitely before World War II for several reasons:
1 – We have fairly decent records of what Camillus has produced since the end of World War II.
2 – Tom Williams said the use of the word cutlery was dropped from the four-line tang stamp at the end of World War II, or thereabouts. Since Cut. is an abbreviation for the word cutlery I think that would also placed prior to World War II.
3 – We know that Camillus was pursuing alternate handle materials during and after World War II. JerryD's famous "shrinky-dink" handles were actually produced towards the end of World War II.
4 – The OP knife and the butter & molasses celluloid I posted both had four digit model numbers on one of the blades. The 1946 Camillus catalog has one and two digit model numbers. The Hawkbill pruner is model #1, but the prewar model number for the Hawkbill pruner is #1001. I have a 1001 and I asked Tom Williams about it before he passed and he told me that 1001 was the four digit prewar model number.
5 – Of the two knives I posted above I believe the butter & molasses is the oldest one judging by the shield. The black and white celluloid knife beneath the butter & molasses has the type of shield that was very popular in the 1930s. That shield is attached by tabs or prongs that push into the celluloid when it is made and are held securely to the handle by tabs at the top and the bottom of that shield that are embedded in the celluloid. I can date that I bought shield back to the Streamline Sword Brand knives which were made circa 1936 if memory serves me, (which it sometimes doesn't).
Now, if the three line
CAMILLUS/CUT.CO./N.Y. U.S.A. weren't bad enough they also had a four-line and a five line version of that very same tang stamp!
The four and five line versions of this tang stamp I have seen were all on bartenders knives that were stamped on the tang of the blade that had a caplifter cut into that tang.
- This four-line version of the Cut. tang stamp is courtesy of Vit.
- This five line version of the Cut. tang stamp is courtesy of Welderbob
It's understandable why they might abbreviate cutlery as Cut. on such a small knife was such a narrow tang however, there is no need to abbreviate cutlery on the knife in the OP nor is there need to do so on the two knives I posted above.
At one time I sought to put all of Camillus is tang stamps in chronological order. I have a folder full of various Camillus tang stamps on my computer, some of which are rarely seen! Does anyone have any idea when the 3 line version was used? How about the 4 & 5 line versions?
I think I have given up on the chronological ordering of the Camillus tang stamps, there are too many that don't seem to be tied to any known dates!
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