In a nutshell schrade was founded in 1904 and those knives were stamped schrade cut co, walden NY. This was the golden age of schrade, in which they produced very beautiful and high quality knives with mostly bone, pearl, stag and celluloid handles. Like many manufacturers at the time they had a much more wide variety of knife patterns than we see in modern times.
In 1946 schrade was on the verge of bankruptcy and was bought by Albert Baer who also owned camillus, ulster and imperial. From 1946 to 1973 their knives would be stamped schrade walden. They continued to use bone handles as the standard until the earlier 1960’s, at which point delrin began to take over. This was not just a change in handle material as the manufacturing methods also had changed. Essentially the mid or late 1950’s was the last hurrah of the best quality schrade knives produced with “old world” type of manufacturing. In 1957 there was a fire at the walden factory and schrade relocated to the ellenville NY plant alongside ulster. At this point the two brands became very similar as they were made in the same factory.
In the 1961 catalog is when the old timer line first appeared. The first two old timer patterns had bone handles but was quickly changed. In 1967 we got the uncle henry line. The old timer and uncle henry knives are the main names people often associate with schrade, but at the same time we also had the “open stock” models. These were nothing more than continuations of some of the knife patterns schrade made before the old timer and uncle henry brands. In 1973 schrade dropped the walden name and continued on as imperial schrade with the knives simply being stamped schrade, until 2004 and bankruptcy. The ellenville factory was never reopened and burned down some time later.
