All About Pocket Knives

A Timber Scribe has become available and I'm interested. This one appears to have no snap. Are the Timber Scribes supposed to have snap?

Any other information regarding this pattern will be appreciated.

I searched eBay and found several described as having "good" or "strong" snap so I guess I just answered my own question.

Jerry: I have a couple and they both exhibit good snap. I do have an unusual one that does not have any snap at all but it also has no back spring.It is pictured on the right and has two blades.One is a folding blade and the other is fixed with a point next to it for making the circular parts of a letter.

Thanks Ray. I knew you would have the answer.

Jerry I have seen those before and wondered what their purpose is. I know nothing about the timber industry. Perhaps someone could enlighten me.

gsmith7158 wrote:Jerry I have seen those before and wondered what their purpose is. I know nothing about the timber industry. Perhaps someone could enlighten me.

They were used to mark the logs and I don't know all the hows and whys of the timber marking, but they also were used to mark wooden barrels for shipping back in the early days.___Dave

Here we go. This explains a timber scribe or race knife.
https://books.google.com/books?id=E6NZd ... be&f=false

gsmith7158 wrote:Here we go. This explains a timber scribe or race knife.
https://books.google.com/books?id=E6NZd ... be&f=false

Thanks for posting that... While familiar, from photos, of the knife type and names, I wasn't quite sure in the how's and why's; learn something new every day as they say.

Pseudonym wrote: Thanks for posting that... While familiar, from photos, of the knife type and names, I wasn't quite sure in the how's and why's; learn something new every day as they say.

That we do. AAPK is just a one stop learning experience.

Welcome to AAPK. Glad to have you aboard.

Welcome aboard Pseudo!

I think the Timber Scribe was used more in the hardwood industry than out here in the Pacific Northwest where we have larger conifer trees that are softer wood than some of the Eastern deciduous forests.
My family were all in the timber industry until they got so busted up they had to find different work, (I am the first generation who didn't start working in the timber industry), so I asked my dad about the Timber Scribe. I showed him one and said, I bet you used these a lot when you were falling timber or working in the mill.
He said, "What is that thing? I have never seen anything like that before!"
It turns out here in Oregon they use a large marking hammer with letters on the face, kind of like a cold branding iron, that they hit the end of the log with or they held the marking hammer up to the log and hit it with another hammer to make the impression into the cut end of the log.

I was kind of disappointed that my dad could not tell me stories of using a timber scribe, or better yet give me an old one he had used or one my granddad had used.
But no such luck, I guess they didn't use them here in Oregon.


Of course now days I think most logs are marked with spray paint.

This is an interesting thread. Thanks for the link, Greg. I figured that the timber scribes were used to mark logs, but from that artcle it sounds as if they were mostly used for crates and barrels.

Interesting comments about the Pacific Northwest, Dale. Timber and sawmills were and still are a pretty big industry in my part of the world (Southeast) but I have never seen a timber scribe, or even knew they existed until I read about them on this forum. Kind of reminds me of the situation with Farmer's Jacks: in spite of living in a area with a lot of businesses that do a lot of grafting, and even working at one once, I never saw a Farmer's Jack until I joined this forum. Part of it may be that this area was a very poor part of the USA for a long time, and the folks who worked in the timber and horticulture business were some of the poorest.

I bet those scribes were used on alot of Jack Daniels Old No. 7 barrels

jerryd6818 wrote: That we do. AAPK is just a one stop learning experience.

Welcome to AAPK. Glad to have you aboard.

orvet wrote:Welcome aboard Pseudo! .

Thank you, gentlemen; much, much appreciated!

Did a lot of trapping when I was a kid back in the 50's and never owned a "trapper " pocket knife either. LOL, Any trees that needed culling out were marked with a spray paint (when I lived and worked in Colorado and Wyoming). So I guess the "timber scribe" was a localized knife ? I never saw one till I joined AAPK. Interesting though. Terry

gsmith7158 wrote:I bet those scribes were used on alot of Jack Daniels Old No. 7 barrels

...another good reason to like 'em!!!........... ................

This is a George Wostenholm.

Wow, Steve. That's an old-un. Nice.

......the scribing tip on my 3 line Camillus is nearly 1 1/2" long,that one appears to have been used much more than mine!!!.......... ................

This one was included in a box of junk knives. I had no idea what it was until doing a little digging here.

What a great find for a junk box! HSB to boot!!!

americanedgetech wrote:What a great find for a junk box! HSB to boot!!!

Thanks, Ken. I knew it was a quality piece when I handled it. Nice half-stop, and strong snap open. I just had no idea what the heck it was.
I was thinking it was missing a blade or something, because everything else in the box had issues. The rust seems to be the only issue with it, but I'm hesitant to do anything to it other than a bit of mineral oil.

I hate to be "That Guy" but that piece would polish up beautifully, and I bet ya' it could pull a pretty penny if you were so inclined to sell it.
As is you would need a collector of such items to appreciate what it is.

No matter how you look at it these are very cool items.

Thanks for the comments, and I agree it is a cool knife, and could be restored to look shiny and near mint, but I'll hold off for a couple reasons. A) it can always be cleaned up, but once it's cleaned, it cannot be "uncleaned".
And B) I'd probably screw it up at this point!

As a newbie to this hobby, I enjoy learning something new every day about knives and the history behind them.
And I've been bit with the bug, and buying like there's no tomorrow , so I need to part with some in order to feed the habit.
At this point in my journey, I like them all, but they're all for sale!