All About Pocket Knives

American Cutler was the trade rag for cutlery manufacturers and jobbers for many years. Most of the articles are devoted to topical import issues or how to increase sales, but the advertisements are a mine of useful information. For example, I knew Camillus made some brands stamped Syracuse NY but I didn't realize they had a plant there until I saw the attached ad. And White Eagle Cutlery is not a brand that I can find in any of my references, despite the fact that they made "pocket knives of every description."

Since American Cutler was a trade rag, the ads targeted jobbers and retailers, not the general public or "consumer."

I have about a thousand pages of these magazines from the early 1920s and I will post interesting items here as I have time to scan them. My source is Google Books, which scanned these magazines in cooperation with the University of Illinois. These items are out of copyright and available for non-commercial use.

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Very interesting stuff!
Thanks for posting!

Evidently Camillus closed the Syracuse plant sometime between 1920 and 1922...

Thanks, Desktop. I find this old stuff fascinating.

Too much fun! This is like tang stamp collecting, but instant gratification.

VERY nice!!

Thanks for posting, many ive not heard of there, love these old advertisments,

American Cutler had a special section in the November 1922 issue for makers of tooling, supplies and raw materials for the cutlery trade. They also ran several Christmas and New Year themed ads with special green inking.

trail, those are AWESOME!
more, more, more!

I agree!

Love these old ads

Thanks, guys, I'm having a lot of fun with this. Looking back at my first post, I may have given the impression I was scanning these, but I'm really just cutting them out of two scanned documents I got from Google books. They are free pdf files, so if you want them for your own digital library, you can download them - they are big, 30 + megs. Here is the url for the file starting January 1922:

http://books.google.com/books?id=m3kiAQ ... &q&f=false

Go to this link and click on pdf near the top right and it should give you the option of viewing or saving the file.

Here is the one from 1920:

http://books.google.com/books?id=YyodAQ ... al&f=false

By the way, there is much tableware, butcher knives, scissors, etc, and probably as much straight and safety razor as all the rest combined - I have been focusing on pocket knives but that is just a fraction of what is in American Cutler.

trail ,Great post!thanks for sharing.
I just love this type of stuff!

Cool ads.
Thanks for posting them.

Conspicuous by absence? I haven't found a Case ad yet, or even a mention of Case. Wonder if there was some vendetta or bad blood between W.R Case and the publishers of American Cutler.

Super cool, thank for showin them sir!

wow some great stuff ! thanks

Trail those old ads are great. I'm really enjoying them.

Phil

dcgm4 posted several American Ace knives at

http://www.allaboutpocketknives.com/kni ... 98&start=0

That's a brand I didn't even know existed until a couple of days ago.

I always enjoy reading Steve "knifeaholic" Pfeiffer's description of the 024 pattern in his book "Collecting Case Knives", especially the description of the "Little John Carver" set packaged with a wood block and pattern for carving a boat. As Steve notes, "a complete Little John Carver whittler's kit with the block, knife, sleeve and box is extremely rare".

But how rare must be the Russell Whittling Kit, advertised in the September 1920 issue of American Cutler? Surely a complete set would constitute the Holy Grail for the Russell Collector.

The immediate postwar period was a time of growth and prosperity for the cutlery companies of America. Several laid plans for expansion in 1920.

Here`s another!
Bob

I'm sure we have some historians and collectors of knives from the once thriving manufacturing center of Fremont OH. Here is an ad from the Christy Knife Company that I found in a January 1918 issue of American Cutler. Can you believe it, this company is in business today, still making the distinctive sliding blade knives that made the company famous.

http://www.christycompany.net/

How about Napanoch? Here's an ad from September 1918.

Next time we have a thread on "what's the best knife sharpening system" I'm going to suggest one of these. State of the art, January 1918.

And some news from a company that is dear to the hearts of many of us at AAPK - Camillus. It is gratifying to know to what extent the company would go to ensure that the employees had a copious supply of cold drinking water. And a 20% surprise raise, not just to the executive suite, but to all employess? Oh for the age of paternalistic management...