All About Pocket Knives

Alrighty all you Schrade experts! I first posted the below knife over in the "Couple of Hammers" thread, and Joe Dirt pointed out that it is built on a Schrade frame! I copied Joe's comments below, and also posted a couple pics of the knife.....comments anyone...? Thanks, Mike

"Mike, looking back thru this thread, that black handle solid construction Hammer Brand
you have is a bit of an oddity!!! Note the square bolsters - that is a Schrade frame with
Hammer Brand blades!!! Never seen one like it before. It's something we should
bring to the attention of are resident Schrade historian... AKA: Dale! If anyone would know
or even have an educated guess - he's the man! There are many more Schrade guys here
as-well. So's how's bout re-posting it and lets see if someone can identify the frame pattern No.!

...... Joe"

Mike,
How long is the knife (closed)?

She's right at 4 " closed, Dale.

Mike

The only thing I can offer: That particular tang stamp has been published as a marking by Imperial from about 1945 to about 1955. Albert Baer had bought Ulster in 1940 and was into Imperial by 1942. He bought Schrade in December of 1946. He owned Imperial outright by the early 1980s, and also Camillus. That is all I have. I do know that parts, contracts, workers, et al were shuffled around in this family of cutlers as needed to make money and keep going.

Cal did a nice job of setting the stage historically, so you already know that there was a lot of swapping back and forth of brands, knives made in one factory for another sister brand, or one company making the parts for another company and so forth.

Can you see on the bolsters if that knife has pins through the bolsters?
If it does not have pins it had to be made by Schrade.

If it does have pins through the bolsters, then it may have been made at Camillus for Imperial or even made by Imperial. Camillus had the tooling to stamp a number of the Schrade patterns.
Here is the record of an order 8OTs made by Camillus for Schrade. So we know Camillus had the tooling to produce the 8OT, so it would have been a relative simple matter to use a different tang stamp and produce an Imperial in the same pattern as the 8OT.

You can see pins when you enlarge the photo.

The swedge on the master blades looks more like a Camillus/Ulster/Imperial style than Schrade, for whatever that's worth. I'll bet the blade surfaces are crocus polished too.

Yes gentlemen, there are definitely pins in the bolsters...and for what it's worth, the liners appear to be brass...

I totally agree with everything that has been mentioned.

Here is a clipping from a 1926 catalog from the Schrades-R-Us site.
It's a pattern No. 881 ( I know there are No.'s that follow these patterns indicating handle material and such.)

Also 2 clips from a catalog that is closer to the time frame of the knife. It's from 1953 and also from Schrades-R-Us.
This one shows a pattern No. of 822 AND No. 881
What is the difference between these 2 patterns?

What I notice on the "Hammer Brand" stamped blade is the length of the tang - it's too long to be Imperial although
the rest of the blade DOES look VERY Imperial to me.

Does anyone recognize the tang shape on the Hammer Brand blade as being characteristic of Camillus? Or who else?

Thanks,

...... Joe

interesting topic folks i like when you guys show paper on knives

I own a knife that I believe is identical to this one. In my opinion it is an early Hammer Brand by Imperial. Imperial bought the Hammer Brand trademark from New York Knife Co. when NYK went out of business in 1931 and manufactured quite a few solid bolster knives using that tang stamping thereafter before relegating the trademark for use in their shell handled knives. You can usually tell the Imperial made knives by the "U.S.A." marking vertically just to the right of the "Hammer Brand", to my knowledge NYK never used the "U.S.A.".

In my opinion, it's an Imperial made knife c. 1930's.