KAW wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2020 5:51 am
Joe... I knew this subject would get your attention!
& I bet you a fair number of those manufactures represent among your grand collection.
Because of the NYK connection, Waterville is one of the makers I'm very interested in & hope to add more to my collection.
That sweet looking knife... what would you call that anyway?... a center swell tuxedo gentleman's whittler?
Also, I sure do hope for
Lee to join in...
Dan... all I can say is "
WOW"!!!... that's the perfect knife to start this thread off with.
Skip... thanks for adding the timeline... most appropriate to have here...
That timeline helped me date this Waterville Manufacturing quill pen knife to between 1847 — 1855.
That is contemporary to when a faction of the workforce departed to create New York Knife Co.... which just blows my mind...
which in turn make this a real treasured piece of history for me!
Tang stamp: Waterville (in an arch) / MFG CO (Sorry that the photo does not clearly show the stamp)
Here I am Ken - been staying away from the computer for a few days... Lots of nice knives above all
... but not all Naugatuck Valley cutleries...
Ken - The Naugatuck Valley is one of my favorite areas of CT for cutleries but… The Naugatuck Valley really only included those cutleries within the Naugatuck Valley basin as defined in CT – around the Naugatuck River and tributaries that used water power… The Naugatuck Valley was
not the location of the majority of CT makers (when there were more than 85 cutleries in the late 1800s) but included many around the city of Waterbury and surrounding towns (egs Thomaston (which was originally Plymouth), Naugatuck, Woodbury, Hotchkissville and others) which includes cutleries such as Waterville, Thomaston, Northfield, American Shear and Knife etc – basically the area considered the central Naugatuck Valley.. To me that is the Naugatuck Valley area referred to within the realm of cutlery factories or shops though a few lesser known cutleries were in towns such as Derby and Shelton in the lower valley and perhaps a few in the northern valley... The central valley was very industrial due to the water power access and based on history the Naugatuck Valley was the first area for the production of pocket knives – Lyman Bradley and Waterville Cutlery have both been credited as the first though most believe Lyman Bradley was the first and he went on to work at other Naugatuck cutleries (I believe Waterville) – and though Holley started around the same time frame in mid 1840s (one of the early stamps was Holley and Merwin (HOME) it was not actually the Naugatuck Valley… Holley is really on the far western edge of the valley on a technical basis so I don’t Holley consider a Naugatuck Valley cutlery - and I don't think others consider it Naugatuck... also Miller Bros,Challenge, LF&C, Remington etc (actually the majority) are not Naugatuck Valley cutleries…
Notably Ben Timme, a good friend, wrote an article on a few Naugatuck Valley cutleries that was published in the June 2012 issue of Knife World - good info and worth the read if you are interested in those cutleries (some of which are very rare makers to find for various reasons)… There is also a The New England Cutleries by Phil Pankiewicz which is basic info and a cursory review on a variety of cutleries..
Collins is mostly axes (best-known for axes) and machetes… not sure of their production of fixed blades at all – and certainly have never seen one other than yours (and I think it may be the same one I saw on eBay at one time but I hesitated because I was not sure it is original (
) … Older looking handles but I would say 1900s but I can’t verify the authenticity of the knife as I have never seen another… No guard is abit strange imo as well... (NOTE IN POST-EDIT: Collins made a rather large fixed blade knife in the 1940s called a Collins #18 with a guard - totally different knife than above and not a machete - a monster of a blade and knife, and I believe made for WWII.)..
If interested in CT try and find a copy of “A history of the cutlery industry in the Connecticut Valley”, by Martha Taber - a thesis from Smith College (Northampton MA) in 1955 which is a great reference for various aspects of the cutleries but it is not a knife guide – economy, marketing, unions etc etc but worth a read if you are interested in knives from the CT River Valley which also includes Massachusetts…
Anyway – Here’s just a very few of mine for now which fit here though were posted in other threads as well (as were most of my knives from this area).. I will post them again here as I get time ..
