All About Pocket Knives

Mumbleypeg wrote: ↑Sun Jul 11, 2021 7:20 pm That’s a tough one and you’ll get as many opinions are there are posts. The period between the turn of the 20th Century and WWII were the Golden Age of U.S. cutlery. Several firms made cutlery of the highest quality materials, workmanship, and design innovation. Design innovations patented during that timeframe are still being produced today, although some have fallen by the wayside. You can view pages on pages of examples here from companies like Phoenix, Cattaraugus, New York Knife, Case, Remington, Winchester, Platts, Robeson, on and on. I could not say one one was better than the others as they were all excellent. We all have our favorites - while debating it might be fun, it won’t prove or resolve a thing!

As has been pointed out many of them had secondary, lower cost/priced lines. Those were by and large made using less expensive cover materials, thinner blade stock, brass in lieu of nickel silver pins and linings, etc. However during that time period the workmanship and mechanical aspects of a knife (such as walk-and-talk) were still excellent. Quality was a customer expectation, unforgiving and as such was the price of entry into the market. Without it a company couldn’t survive. “Lower end” brands like Imperial, Colonial, Ideal, etc were still very good knives having good steel and mechanical properties. As mergers and acquisition occurred within the industry some, like Hammer Brand for example, moved from upper tier to lower tier.

Complicated answer to a simple question for which there is no right answer. JMO

KEN

Mumbleypeg wrote: ↑Sun Jul 11, 2021 7:20 pm That’s a tough one and you’ll get as many opinions are there are posts. The period between the turn of the 20th Century and WWII were the Golden Age of U.S. cutlery. Several firms made cutlery of the highest quality materials, workmanship, and design innovation. Design innovations patented during that timeframe are still being produced today, although some have fallen by the wayside. You can view pages on pages of examples here from companies like Phoenix, Cattaraugus, New York Knife, Case, Remington, Winchester, Platts, Robeson, on and on. I could not say one one was better than the others as they were all excellent. We all have our favorites - while debating it might be fun, it won’t prove or resolve a thing!

As has been pointed out many of them had secondary, lower cost/priced lines. Those were by and large made using less expensive cover materials, thinner blade stock, brass in lieu of nickel silver pins and linings, etc. However during that time period the workmanship and mechanical aspects of a knife (such as walk-and-talk) were still excellent. Quality was a customer expectation, unforgiving and as such was the price of entry into the market. Without it a company couldn’t survive. “Lower end” brands like Imperial, Colonial, Ideal, etc were still very good knives having good steel and mechanical properties. As mergers and acquisition occurred within the industry some, like Hammer Brand for example, moved from upper tier to lower tier.

Complicated answer to a simple question for which there is no right answer. JMO

KEN

JohnR wrote: ↑Tue Jul 13, 2021 11:41 am Pre Depression knives were some of the best in my opinion and it seems that almost every company made good knives at that time. two that I did not see mentioned are Challenge and Miller Brothers, both companies made very high quality knives.