All About Pocket Knives

I got this in an antique shop today for £23 in Cambridgeshire, UK. It's gorgeous but I can't find out anything about it online. Can anyone help with age, maker and anything else?? It says B&S on the tang but nothing comes up when I search for it. The Silver Jubilee of the King and Queen was in 1935 so it might be a knife to celebrate that. George V died in January 1936 so it presumably predates that. The blade seems to be stainless steel, the liners, brass and the shields are some kind of light metal. Pewter perhaps? Lots of images and close ups here on my blog, as well as a close up of the tang. What a lot of lovely detail they squeezed into such a small knife!
Thank you,
Iain
https://fouragesofsand.blogspot.co.uk/2 ... ocket.html

The B Y S stamp could stand for Bontgen & Sabin (or Bonsa);a German firm that made many types of knives.The handles look to be made of aluminum(or aluminium as you say)that was a trademark of Daniel Peres Co.;another German firm. Strange that a German firm would be charged with the creation of an English event;especially since there were so many knife manufacturers in England.I checked a couple of my reference books but could not find an English cutler using those initials.

Thanks for looking. "Could not find an English cutler using those initials" How intriguing!
Yes, it would be very odd for a German firm to have made the blades. There was a high level of anti-German feeling at the time due to the First World War and as I understand it, people generally boycotted anything German made. George V changed the British royal family name from the Germanic Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, to Windsor and dispensed with the use of German titles and surnames because of this, so it would be very surprising if he then sanctioned "German knives" with his and the queen's head on them! A proper mystery...
"The handles look to be made of aluminum". That makes sense; the knife is extremely light. "or aluminium as you say". Yes, watching American films (sorry, "movies" I thought for a long time that 'aluminum' was some different kind of metal

There was a time (early 1900's ?) when a few British knife manufacturer's contracted out to German knife manufacturers because it was cheaper than manufacturing the same knife in Britain. These knives are NOT marked "Germany". The OP knife might be an example of this contracting out to Germany.
kj

Interesting. They look quite old so I'm assuming it's towards the end of his reign in the 1930's at least. If the work was contracted out then it would have been done on the quiet I'm sure. If so there's a scandal waiting to be uncovered!

Iain1211 wrote:Thanks for looking. "Could not find an English cutler using those initials" How intriguing!
Yes, it would be very odd for a German firm to have made the blades. There was a high level of anti-German feeling at the time due to the First World War and as I understand it, people generally boycotted anything German made. George V changed the British royal family name from the Germanic Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, to Windsor and dispensed with the use of German titles and surnames because of this, so it would be very surprising if he then sanctioned "German knives" with his and the queen's head on them! A proper mystery...
"The handles look to be made of aluminum". That makes sense; the knife is extremely light. "or aluminium as you say". Yes, watching American films (sorry, "movies" I thought for a long time that 'aluminum' was some different kind of metal

Your forgetting that George V, and Kaiser Wilhelm were first cousins, and no matter the feeling of the English people there was a concerted effort to maintain stability between the countries pre WWI.
Logically speaking, if the knife were-made in Germany as a "gift" I believe it would have been stamped as such. If it was commissioned by an English maker to a German cutler as a gesture of "good faith" wouldn't it then also have been stamped "Germany" or at the least bear the English cutlers name?
The knife appears to be a cast piece rather than engraved so I think I would look into the companies that were smelting metals at that time. (1910-1930) especially those that could have been working in aluminum. It may have been a piece made by a smelter to show this new metal to the royals, and potentially become the "Smelters to the Throne".

lian, if you thought that Aluminum was a different metal, imagine what us Yanks thought about "Spotted Dick"!

Thanks again Ken, lots to think about there. I'll do some more digging. There are plenty more great examples which cause us as much confusion and consternation as I imagine our popular dessert does over there, but I'll resist saying more as having just discovered this great forum and great people, I'd be heart-broken to be barred
In passing, I found this little folding knife for a £ at a car boot sale last week. There's enough left of the wording to ID it as the village of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré in Quebec. It's famous (I read) for its Basilica, which is a major Roman Catholic place of pilgrimage. Putting aside the puzzle of why they were selling souvenir knifes at a holy site, I wonder how the Germans ended up making the blades!

Iain1211 wrote:I got this in an antique shop today for £23 in Cambridgeshire, UK. It's gorgeous but I can't find out anything about it online. Can anyone help with age, maker and anything else?? It says B&S on the tang but nothing comes up when I search for it. The Silver Jubilee of the King and Queen was in 1935 so it might be a knife to celebrate that. George V died in January 1936 so it presumably predates that. The blade seems to be stainless steel, the liners, brass and the shields are some kind of light metal. Pewter perhaps? Lots of images and close ups here on my blog, as well as a close up of the tang. What a lot of lovely detail they squeezed into such a small knife!
Thank you,
Iain
https://fouragesofsand.blogspot.co.uk/2 ... ocket.html

Welcome to AAPK Iain.
I believe I have found some partial information on your B&S knife.
The below "blogspot" link will show that B&S is actually a German mfg. knife, by: August Bontgen and Lewis Sabin. Look at the lowest picture within the link and you shall see the identical Initials / Logo as your listed knife. The picture represents a 1922 "Bontgen & Sabin advertisement. A very cool picture of their extremely large mfg. plant is within the ad located in Solingen Germany.
http://thebladeblog-ulf.blogspot.com/20 ... rmany.html

Dan you've cracked it! Amazing, thank you. As you say, the surrounding design of the logo makes it a 100% certain ID. The only question now is whether the knife itself was made in Germany, or just the blades. (I don't know if it was common practice to make a knife and contract out just the blades). Shame the company went out of business in 1983 otherwise I could have asked them. Knife7knut: "The B Y S stamp could stand for Bontgen & Sabin" I'm sorry I doubted you!