All About Pocket Knives

AAPK member louied recently posted a thread on a fabulous Schrade Cut Premium Stockman in stainless steel that prompted me to post my own thread on the subject.

I recently acquired a Schrade Cut Jack pattern SS 2563 on page 59 of the 1926 Schrade catalog. There were 10 folder patterns offered in stainless in this 1926 catalog. The jigging on mine is peach seed while the jigging on louied's Premium Stockman pattern no. SS 8813 looks like an earlier style than peachseed as he indicated. George Schrade invented his jigging machine in 1925. According to Charlie Campagna's best guess there are four somewhat distinct jigging patterns. The earliest is pick bone associated with the Schrade early arched tang stamp, next is like on louied's Stockman followed by a basket weave sort of pattern and finally peach seed that carries into the Schrade Walden period. Now just when exactly these jigging patterns were introduced and for how long they were utilized and how much "spill over" there was into the next pattern period of production etc. is very unclear to me. Here is a photo of my SS Jack for the record. Could mine be a later production model from a different later catalog?-- very possible I guess. The artist rendering of what looks like mine in the 1926 catalog may be an earlier example since the bone jigging in the catalog is not discernible and distinguishable via an ink pen rendering.

Further, about stainless steel used in knives according to BRL, stainless steel was invented in 1914, with the first commercial use for knives in 1915. Widespread use for knives by 1919. By the 1930s, close to 10% of all pocket cutlery sold in the US was stainless. However, I have also heard that it's use was met initially with a certain element of distrust or skepticism by the knife buying public and sort of fell out of favor for a period time. Further, that Schrade just stopped producing stainless steel folders for awhile. I think there were certainly far fewer stainless steel folding knives ever made pre WWII. I think louied's Schrade Cut SS folder is post WWI and pre WWII.

Any comments or further insight is greatly appreciated! I welcome and appreciate your comments or clarifications about any of this.

I don't know what jigging machine Schrade CutCo used but I know that the George Schrade company in Bridgeport Connecticut had little or nothing to do with Schrade Cutlery Company of Walden, N.Y. George broke away from SCCo in 1910 to do other things, eventually starting his own company. I believe the peach-seed jigging on your stainless jack dates to the last of the 1930s or early 1940s. When the war started, manufacturing of the nicer knives pretty much dried up. Although I have no real evidence, I believe that when the war was over, Schrade was pretty much on its last legs and not doing much. They sold out in December of 1946 to Baer. So when I see those nice peachseed knives I have to wonder if any of them were made in 1945 and 1946. When the new Schrade Walden company started up they had a pretty small selection to offer, but we know they were using the same equipment and making the same jigged bone as those beautiful CutCos, at least through most of the 1950s. And that was the end of it.

Thanks Cal I appreciate your response and for adding perspective and detail to the timeline of some of the SCC knife production and bone jigging questions I have--much appreciated!!

Great information from both of you. That's a very nice knife you have Lloyd, as always.

Thanks Paul I appreciate your nice comments!

Beautiful equal end jack there, Lloyd.