All About Pocket Knives

In 1914 Stainless steel was invented, by 1915 it was being used in knives of all types. It`s resistance to rust was immediately recognized as a very useful thing when it comes to pocket and kitchen knives, after all cutting wet and acidic stuff will quickly corrode carbon steel if left uncleaned.

In the 1800`s Silver was the metal of choice to prevent corrosion and today we see all the ornate silver fruit knives of that era. But as soon as Stainless Steel was invented Silver went out of use as the preferred metal in fruit knives. So started the use of Stainless steel in these type knives and just about every other pattern of knife sold.

Most of the early Stainless Steel knives were small pen knives, then in the 1920`s-1930`s they started using it in the larger patterns, Challenge Cutlery used stainless quite a bit.

The early knives had Carbon Steel back springs, they were having a problem tempering the Stainless to where the springs would not break. I have lots of old stainless steel back spings that are broken.

Today the large majority of all pocket knives are stainless steel, carbon is still preferred by some like myself as I find I can sharpen it easier and it will stay sharp much longer.

I would like to see your old stainless steel bladed knives in this thread. Here is an old 1922 ad from Empire knife touting the benefits of stainless, also a picture of the later fruit knives that had stainless steel blades and back springs, fruit knives soon went out of production as it was no longer necessary to have a specific bladed knife to cut up fruit, any pocket knife could now be used.

Schrade cut co. not as many surprises when you opened your tackle box

Great looking knife Paul. I think I'd store that one someplace other than the tackle box.

Paul, that is a beauty

Here are a couple more with stainless blades and handles.

The gold handle is a Robeson and the other is a B&B.

Here's my old Challenge "scout" with stainless blades and springs.






Here it is with all blades out compared to an old Crucible. I think that is the only time I've ever opened all the blades at once
due to the fact that the springs are known to break.

Boy, Stainless steel bladed old knives must be "Rare" Nobody is posting any

Here is another old one............

Dimitri,
Was the stainless steel back springs breaking the reason that Queen Cutlery stopped using the word Stainless on their early stainless steel knives and began using the words Queen Steel? Seems like I remember reading that somewhere but for the life of me I can't remember where. The story was something like; The people became afraid of breaking stainless steel back springs and blades or just didn't like change in blade steels and sales dropped for Queen stainless steel marked knives, and so Queen began using Queen Steel in place of Stainless Steel.

Aimus

I think I have a couple.

Here's an old stainless steel H. Boker & Co's Improved Cutlery.

Nice one guys

Thanks for showing `em

Robeson used stainless steel in their NO-RUSTAIN line of knives.

Most of the knives had a NO-RUSTAIN shield and were etched, "RUSTLESS-STAINLESS" on the master.

But, not all knives had the shield, nor were all knives etched. They can be found with one, both or neither.

Robeson ID'd the knives with the third digit "9" in the pattern number.

Here are some examples.

Charlie Noyes

Charlie just beautiful knives. how could you not love a knife with original blade etch........

Aimus Moses wrote:Dimitri,
Was the stainless steel back springs breaking the reason that Queen Cutlery stopped using the word Stainless on their early stainless steel knives and began using the words Queen Steel? Seems like I remember reading that somewhere but for the life of me I can't remember where. The story was something like; The people became afraid of breaking stainless steel back springs and blades or just didn't like change in blade steels and sales dropped for Queen stainless steel marked knives, and so Queen began using Queen Steel in place of Stainless Steel.

Aimus

Aimus,

Yes, you are correct.

Other knife companies started using Stainless Steel when it first was invented, it was bought from a company that had the rights to sell it, so all the early knife companies that used the steel had the same formula. From what I have seen it was too hard and the back springs broke very easily also the blade edges chipped and the cutting edge did not hold a good edge, also I have a box full of them in near unused condition with blade etches that seem to have broken rather quickly. As a result the early knives made by various knife companies got a bad reputation, and they went back to using Carbon steel.

From what I understand two of the original founders of the Queen Cutlery Company played around with their own formula, now in the 1940`s the patents would have run out on the original anyway, and they came up with 440C. It was a success and out performed the earlier stainless steel, so to avoid the stigma associated with the old "Stainless Steel", they used "Queen Steel" for all their knives that had stainless in them.

Stainless steel was invented in Sheffield by a man named Firth and was done at the Portland Works which has recently been saved from conversion to apartments thanks to the efforts of the current tenants which does still include one knife maker, Stuart Mitchell son of Pat Mitchell who was also a knife maker.

one more for this thread , just picked it up at the NCCA show

Firth's Stainless was used for pocket knives in the 1920s and 30s by Wostenholm, Ibberson and a few other Sheffield makers. Apparently, it had a very small touch of silver in the mix so that a chemical analysis could differentiate the genuine from the counterfeit.

I am going to post this knife here, because I think it was from the early era of stainless steel. It has all carbon steel blades and springs, except the master blade. That is why I am guessing it was when they hadn't figured out stainless quite yet, for springs etc. It also has a Prest-O-Lite wrench on it, and I don't think that would have continued very far into the SS years? It was a light colored celluloid that gassed out, and I reworked it, so it is not in it's original configuration. Here is a thread on the rework.
http://www.allaboutpocketknives.com/kni ... 37&t=29882
I think the one in the upper left corner of Singin46's picture, taken at the OKCA show might be like it. Does anyone have one of these? I haven't had time to look through all 70+ pages of the scout thread.... I would like to see if there were other handle materials used, besides light cell?

From the picture the tang on the master blade looks to be carbon steel and the blade stainless steel, is it?

I think it is just the light. It is all stainless with a stain...lol

They used jigged bone on them. The ones marked union cut. co. were the same except the bail was on the blade end.

When Empire made their "Art Deco" Saddlehorn into a fishing knife, they used stainless steel, likely in the early 1920s.

That is a beauty Charlie! Did Empire make that pattern for Shapleigh, in carbon steel?

Imperial 1961

Yes, Bret, they did! They made it as a hunting knife in carbon, with bone or ebony handles, and you could have it in Diamond-Edge or Empire branding. I'll post some elsewhere so as not to hijack this great stainless thread! See the Empire thread.

Nice Empire!

Here is a Stainless Robeson...............