All About Pocket Knives

Frary & Son was located in Bridgeport Connecticut They were in business for a very short time.

Goins says 1881-1884. I see some cheap boy`s knife turn up from time to time by Frary.

James D. Frary was in the cutlery business from about 1861. He was also the president of L.F. & C. for a couple years then started the Frary Cutlery Co. They made mass produced cast pot metal handle boy`s knives mostly.

In 1881 he formed the company Frary & Son. Many of the knives are tang stamped "A1", this was their trademark. By all accounts the business closed up in 1884. So finding knives with this tang stamp are very rare.

This knife was patented in 1882 and it is the most ingenious take apart Hobo knife you will ever see. Most of these take apart knives are too bulky to carry in the pocket. The ones with the folding spoon are next to impossible to actually carry in your pocket comfortably. This knife however can be easily carried. If you just need to use the cutting blade you would open it just like any other folding knife. If you just wanted to use the fork, fold it out as well. But if you wanted to use both at the same time, just pull in opposite directions on each bolster. The two pieces will slide apart. The handles are hollow nickle plated sheet brass that has an ornate design on each side. Very inexpensive to make and easy to assemble. These could be produced quickly and inexpensively. They were only made for 2 years 1882-84. I have only seen 3 of these in all my years of looking for old knives. If you have one please post pictures in this thread

Great post, Dimitri, and great pictures too. That is something to keep an eye out for here in New England, and especially here in old Connecticut. Thanks.

WOW Dimitri!! That is way over the top cool

Very interesting.......I've never seen that!
Thats what I love about this site........you can learn something new every day.

Paul

Thanks guys!

Joe, keep an eye out you may find one some day.

They are right in your neck of the woods

Thaks Dimitri,
That is great! That is the first I have seen of those.

Very informative post. Thanks for sharing that with us Dimitri.

I've never seen anything quite like that.

Phil

thats was a great post ! i can see bridgeport when i'm fishing. many times stopped at antique stores there

Miller Bro`s wrote:Frary & Son was located in Bridgeport Connecticut They were in business for a very short time.

Goins says 1881-1884. I see some cheap boy`s knife turn up from time to time by Frary.

James D. Frary was in the cutlery business from about 1861. He was also the president of L.F. & C. for a couple years then started the Frary Cutlery Co. They made mass produced cast pot metal handle boy`s knives mostly.

In 1881 he formed the company Frary & Son. Many of the knives are tang stamped "A1", this was their trademark. By all accounts the business closed up in 1884. So finding knives with this tang stamp are very rare.

This knife was patented in 1882 and it is the most ingenious take apart Hobo knife you will ever see. Most of these take apart knives are too bulky to carry in the pocket. The ones with the folding spoon are next to impossible to actually carry in your pocket comfortably. This knife however can be easily carried. If you just need to use the cutting blade you would open it just like any other folding knife. If you just wanted to use the fork, fold it out as well. But if you wanted to use both at the same time, just pull in opposite directions on each bolster. The two pieces will slide apart. The handles are hollow nickle plated sheet brass that has an ornate design on each side. Very inexpensive to make and easy to assemble. These could be produced quickly and inexpensively. They were only made for 2 years 1882-84. I have only seen 3 of these in all my years of looking for old knives. If you have one please post pictures in this thread

Is this the same Gentleman associated with Frary, Smith and Clark out of Meriden, Conn. 1850 to 1865 who also merged with Landers to form (Landers , Frary and Clark 1865 to 1950 in New Britain, Conn?
I have an ink eraser with Landers, Frary and Clark marked on it.
And does anyone know how an ink eraser was used to erase ink?

J W

knives-are-quiet wrote:does anyone know how an ink eraser was used to erase ink?

I believe ink was scraped from vellum(sp) with this tool.

knives-are-quiet wrote:Is this the same Gentleman associated with Frary, Smith and Clark out of Meriden, Conn. 1850 to 1865 who also merged with Landers to form (Landers , Frary and Clark 1865 to 1950 in New Britain, Conn?

There was a company called Landers & Smith MFG. Co. that merged with Frary to form the Landers Frary& Clark Co. around 1861.

knives-are-quiet wrote:I have an ink eraser with Landers, Frary and Clark marked on it.
And does anyone know how an ink eraser was used to erase ink?

Take the Ink Eraser and gently scrape the ink from the paper where you want to make a correction. This is how it was used back then, before the rubber eraser

I have a glass fiber eraser my grandmother used.
It is a plastic tube with a knob on the end. You twist the knob to advance the bundle of glass fibers out to the end of the tube. You use the fibers to abrade the paper and remove the fibers that have the ink on them. It leaves a rough spot on the paper, but it works quite well using the same principal as the knife blade ink eraser.

As you can see it is at least 50 years old and has been taped to hold it together.

That is neat Dale

First one I have seen

MB;
That is a really neat slide apart knife.
Gotta be a rare bird.
I hate to say where I saw that pattern for the first time and where I saw the last example. They were not the same knife each time.
Charlie Noyes

Great knife. I hope this page from Philip R. Pankiewicz's New England cutlery book is of interest. s-k

Here are some enjoyable historical knives.These are not Frary & Sons, but It seems they should be here with other Frary knives.

The first is a FRARY 1876-84) two blade boys knife. The cast handles depict the Gilbert and Sullivan play H.M.S. Pinafore. On one side is Ralph, the protagonist, and on the other is the H.M.S. Pinafore. The play came out in 1878 and became quite popular. I would imagine this was a promotional knife or a souvenir type knife.

The second is a FRARY (1876-84) Barlow with the same tang stamp as the boys knife. It has integral bolsters and bone scales. The scale on the back side has two large chunks taken out of it.

The third is a FRARY CUTLERY CO. (1876-84) carving set. The handles are stag, the ferrules and end plates are pewter. Etched on the blade is an arched FRARY CUTLERY CO. with a floral type pattern underneath and a word below that CHA…? which I can not make out.

Very nice group of Frary knives

Thanks MB, I enjoy the search for the older ones.

I dont think i've ever heard of anybody specializing in powder flasks.
Things have surely changed since way back then.
I had a few old flasks years ago. I wish i would of hung on to them.

That barlow is sweet. Does anybody know why they put a arrow on alot of barlow patterns bolsters?

Hello,

My Grandfather gave me a Frary hobo knife some time back that belonged to my Great Grandfather. I've been online a few times trying to learn more about it and this is the first time I found anything at all about it. Thank you so much. To show how little I knew about the knife, I didn't even know it came apart until today! I wonder if my Granfather even knew, if he did, he never bothered to show me

Anyway here are a few pics of my example. Note that it lacks the patent at the base of the blade and has instead the brand on the blade itself. I also think the decrations may be slightly different on the handles?

Thank you again!

Ryan

to AAPK.

You have a treasure there, I bet your Grandfather knew it came apart

Do you have any notion as to its value? It's certainly going to remain in our family for as long as I have anything to say about it but I am curious.

Fantastic knife ryandewald. Its really neat to see that Frary's Camping Knife etch. I can't tell you how much it is worth, its a pretty rare knife. I have only seen three of them, including MB's. maybe someone with more experience will come along and venture a guess.

Very neat and interesting rare examples guys and thanks Miller Bros. and smiling-knife for the additional pictures and information.