Antique Winchester Knives and Company History 1919-1942

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While the primary focus is 1919-1942 Winchester-branded knives, I don't think it would be out of place to discuss E.C. Simmons Keen Kutter-branded knives made during the Winchester era. Additionally, for comparison/discussion purposes, if you have any Napanoch and/or early Walden knives, feel free to show 'em. I think they will add to our appreciation of this particular slice of knife history.


Key dates/events:

1919 - Winchester Repeating Arms Company enters the cutlery market.

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Winchester buys Eagle Knife Company (also located in New Haven) and...

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...Napanoch Knife Company of Napanoch, New York and moves most of its equipment and all employees willing to relocate to New Haven. Begins to manufacture pocket knives.
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1922 - Winchester merges with E.C. Simmons Hardware and acquires Walden Knife Company in which Simmons had controlling interest since at least 1911.
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The new company's name is changed to Winchester-Simmons.


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1923 - Walden Knife Company's equipment (most? some?) along with employees (many? some?) are moved to New Haven (*See note below).

1929 - Winchester and Simmons go their separate ways. Winchester continues to make high quality pocket knives for a few more years.

1931 - Winchester Repeating Arms Company goes into receivership and is bought at bankruptcy auction by the Olin family's Western Cartridge Company on December 22, 1931, becoming a subsidiary of Western Cartridge.

1933 - Due to competition from companies making low-priced and lesser quality knives, Winchester begins to produce light-gauge, machine-made assortment knives which soon become a major part of its business. Winchester continues to make high quality pocket knives, but in less patterns and lower quantities than before.

1935 - Western Cartridge merges with its subsidiary to form the Winchester-Western Company.

1942 - With America's entry into World War II, Winchester's cutlery manufacturing ceases in early 1942.


*Note: to muddy the waters and in spite of the cited references below, there seems to be some evidence that some part of Walden Knife Company remained in Walden and continued to make knives there as late as 1926. I believe Dan danno50 danno50 can shed some light on this.


As always, post 'em if you got 'em!
 
Extract from Levine's Guide to Knives and Their Values, 4th Edition (1997) by Bernard Levine:
The Winchester Repeating Arms Co. of New Haven, Connecticut, and the E.C. Simmons Hardware Co. of St. Louis, Missouri, shared a common history for less than
a decade, but it is the period in the 1920s that is of the greatest interest to knife collectors.

At the end of the First World War, Winchester, like rival Remington, had found itself with extra production capacity and investment capital. Management sought
new uses for these resources and the first choice was cutlery. Rather than developing cutlery capacity from scratch, as Remington was doing, Winchester bought
two very different existing firms to form the basis of its cutlery operation.

In New Haven Winchester bought the Eagle Knife Co. from the Hemming Brothers. The Hemmings had invented and patented the world's first successful automatic
blade-grinding machines. They also had developed automatic punch presses for blanking blades. Winchester wanted the machines, and the know-how to apply them,
for its own operation.

In upstate New York, Winchester bought the Napanoch Knife Co., a traditional pocketknife firm founded in 1900. Winchester moved most of Napanoch's equipment
and all of its employees who were willing to relocate to New Haven, and then sold the land and buildings to a group of the remaining employees, who turned it
into the Honk Falls Knife Co.

Winchester began to manufacture pocketknives sporting blades blanked from chrome-vanadium tool steel. Though great at edge holding, the material made ugly
knives that no one would buy. What Winchester really needed was more hardware marketing savvy. To acquire it, Winchester merged with the Simmons Hardware Co.
in 1922.

Simmons Hardware had begun as a regional hardware wholesaler in St. Louis after the Civil War, much like hundreds of other similar firms all over the United
States. Unlike most hardware wholesalers, however, Simmons had grown and expanded aggressively in pursuit of a national market. The Simmons "Keen Kutter"
brand had become known all over the country.

In pocket cutlery, "Keen Kutter" was the Simmons premium brand, used mainly on American-made knives. The company's lower-priced knives, most of which were
made in Germany, were tang stamped "Simmons" or "Simmons Hardware Co." Some of the latter have a picture of a hornet stamped on the reverse tang, and the
older "Simmons Hornet" knives are popular with collectors.

Simmons did not just contract with manufacturers for its private-brand Keen Kutter merchandise; whenever it could, it bought them out. By so doing, it could
give priority to its own production and then use excess capacity to make a profit supplying some of its competitors.

For pocketknife production, Simmons bought the Walden Knife Co. of Walden, New York, in 1902. Thus, in 1922, when Winchester bought Simmons, it also got the
Walden Knife Co. Walden's equipment was moved to New Haven in 1923. Thenceforth, former Walden and Napanoch staff made Winchester and Keen Kutter pocketknives
on Walden equipment in Winchester's New Haven plants. Eschewing fancy alloys and much of the Hemmings' automatic machinery, the company's cutlers forged
pocketknife blades from plain old carbon steel.

Winchester-Simmons was a large, integrated firm. It manufactured firearms, ammunition, cutlery, tools, flashlights, batteries and a variety of other hardware.
In addition, it bought a wide range of private-branded hardware items. It did most of its own wholesale distribution through offices in Atlanta, Boston,
Chicago, Minneapolis, "Pacific," Philadelphia, St. Louis, Sioux City, Toledo and Wichita. It actively encouraged independent hardware retailers to become
franchised "Winchester Stores," carrying Winchester-brand merchandise exclusively. Stores that did not join the Winchester retail network were still
encouraged to carry Winchester or Keen Kutter cutlery, as well as Winchester firearms and ammunition, which were also distributed through other wholesalers.

Winchester-Simmons grew and prospered through the 1920s, but after 1929 the two firms went their separate ways. Thereafter, Winchester concentrated on
manufacturing and distribution, while Simmons once again became strictly a hardware wholesaler. In 1940, Simmons was acquired by its long time St. Louis
rival, the Shapleigh Hardware Co. Keen Kutter became Shapleigh's second brand, after its own Diamond-Edge. Following the Shapleigh firm's demise in 1960,
Imperial acquired the Diamond-Edge mark, while "Keen Kutter" vanished from the marketplace.

In the 1930s, Winchester strove to maintain its reputation for quality cutlery, but in the face of mechanized costcutting rivals such as Imperial, Colonial,
Utica and Camillus, it had to adapt. In 1933, the firm introduced, tentatively at first, light-gauge, machine-made assortment knives. The original plan was
that the knives would be the "entering wedge" to help Winchester salesmen get their better knives onto retailers' shelves, but assortments soon became a major
part of Winchester's business (see Blade Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-Famer© Bernard Levine's related story in Knife World, January 1988). The combination of
Winchester markings only on one blade, no pattern number and rough black handles indicates an inexpensive "assortment" knife from the 1930s. In some
instances, the assortment knives had multi-colored celluloid handles instead.

With America's entry into World War II in December 1941, Winchester began a rapid phasing out of most of its consumer-oriented manufacturing. The firm's
cutlery manufacturing ceased in early 1942.

Winchester has not made any knives since that time, but in recent years the firm's German and French distribution agencies have had Winchester-brand knives
contract made for sale in their European markets. Winchester USA has licensed Blue Grass Cutlery of Manchester, Ohio, to distribute new Winchester brand
knives in the United States.
 
Extract from Official Price Guide to Collector Knives, 15th Edition (2008) by C. Houston Price and Mark D. Zalesky:
When the Winchester Arms Company decided to expand into the cutlery field, shortly after World War II, it did so through acquistion. In 1919, Winchester purchased two very reputable table knife manufacturers, the Eagle Knife Company of New Haven, Connecticut and the Napanoch Knife Company of Napanoch, New York. For Winchester, these purchases were well founded in its entry into the knife market. Eagle had developed machinery and methods, such as blade blanking and automatic grinding, which would be so important to assembly line production. Napanoch had made a very high quality knife and the skill of Napanoch cutlers would complement the modern production methods designed by Eagle. A large percentage of the employees of the two purchased companies became employees of Winchester in the New Haven factory. By combining technology, skill and cutlery experience so acquired, Winchester was able to soon mass-produce a high-quality knife marked with its own brand. Convinced that it was solidly entrenched within the market, Winchester adopted the motto describing its knives "As good as the gun."

In 1922, Winchester and the E.C. Simmons Hardware Company of St. Louis, Missouri, merged to form the Winchester-Simmons Company. Winchester was to have production responsibility and Simmons was to be responsible for marketing. At the time of the merger, Simmons owned controlling interest in the Walden Knife Company. In 1923, production of Walden knives ended and all of Walden's equipment was moved to the Winchester site. In addition to knives marked with the Winchester trademark, the factory also made knives branded KEEN KUTTER for sale by Simmons.

The firm of Winchester-Simmons was dissolved, with Winchester retaining the manufacturing facilities and Simmons the marketing business. Up until the 1930s, Winchester knives were of excellent quality. Increasing competition from manufacturers of low-priced cutlery motivated the company to begin selling dealer assortments of lesser quality knives. The advent of World War II offered Winchester other manufacturing alternatives and cutlery production was ceased by early 1942.

Although a few German-made knives marked with the Winchester name appeared in the market during the late 1970s and early 1980s, these were cheap knives not authorized by the company. In the late 1980s, however, Winchester licensed the manufacture and distribution of a quality line of reproduction-type knives to Blue Grass Cutlery.

The pattern numbers used by Winchester can be used to identify knives as follows:

The first digit signifies the number of blades, while the second digit signifies the following handle material:

0 - Celluloid
1 - Fancy Celluloid
2 - Nickel Silver
3 - Genuine Pearl
6 - Cocobolo or Other Wood
7 - Bone
8 - Bone Stag
9 - Sometimes used for Bone or Stag

The third and fourth digits signify factory pattern.

There were two distinct lines of Winchester knives. Those of higher quality (earlier manufacture) are stamped WINCHESTER/TRADEMARK/MADE IN USA on all blades, or with that mark on the master and WINCHESTER alone on secondary blades. The lesser quality line knives are stamped on only one blade. While these stamping differences did exist on most of Winchester's production, the collector should be aware that there are some exceptions.
 
Extract from The Standard Knife Collector's Guide, 6th Edition (2009) by Ron Stewart:
The Winchester Arms Company entered the cutlery business in 1919 in order to maintain its production capacities after World War I. The company saw cutlery production as a way to offse the loss of government arms contracts. This same year Winchester purchased the Eagle Knife Company of New Haven and the Napanoch Knife Company of Napanoch, New York. Both the men and machinery of the Napanoch Knife Company were moved to the New Haven, Connecticut location.

Winchester began mass production that year using the most advanced techniques of the time. Perhaps its methods were a little too far advanced because the public did not accept its use of chrome-vanadium steel, new for knife blades. Even though vanadium steel was a better material, it did not polish like the more common high carbon steel and had to be discontinued.

In the early 1920s, Winchester, through its association with E.C. Simmons Hardware Company, gained control of Walden Knife Company of Walden, New York. Walden equipment and employees were also moved to Winchester's New Haven location. There, they continued to manufacture many of Walden's old patterns, including the one known today as the famous 1920 Winchester folding hunter.

It seemed its production of pocketknives was at last getting into full swing when once again goverment contracts for the manufacture of arms began coming in. With World War II in the wings, Winchester ceased its production of pocketknives and other forms of cutlery in the early 1940s in order to make arms for the government. Since then, Winchester has considered it impractical to re-open a cutlery division.
 
Great thread! :thumbsup:
Excerpt from quote in post #4 above...
"The pattern numbers used by Winchester can be used to identify knives as follows:
The first digit signifies the number of blades, while the second digit signifies the following handle material:

0 - Celluloid
1 - Fancy Celluloid
2 - Nickel Silver
3 - Genuine Pearl
6 - Cocobolo or Other Wood
7 - Bone
8 - Bone Stag
9 - Sometimes used for Bone or Stag

The third and fourth digits signify factory pattern.

There were two distinct lines of Winchester knives. Those of higher quality (earlier manufacture) are stamped WINCHESTER/TRADEMARK/MADE IN USA on all blades, or with that mark on the master and WINCHESTER alone on secondary blades. The lesser quality line knives are stamped on only one blade. While these stamping differences did exist on most of Winchester's production, the collector should be aware that there are some exceptions."

So - breaking down the stamped number, 2=2 blades, 7=bone, and 03=Barlow? Likely not a premium knife having unadorned bolsters and only one blade stamped. It'd be kinda neat to know the approximate date of mfr.


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Great thread, MerryMadMonk (Al, I believe?). I have been considering starting a similar one on Walden Knife. I have been attempting to research Walden Knife for some time now, mostly with a view to the making of Keen Kutter pocket knives. In 1902 a principal stockholder in Walden, by the name of George Weller, retired and E.C. Simmons bought all of his stocks, gaining control of Walden Knife. In 1922 Simmons and Winchester merged. All good to here. As was cited by Al in the posts above, most of the knife collecting world believes that shortly after the merger, about 1923, the Walden plant was closed and the equipment and workers moved to New Haven.
There is quite a bit of historical evidence that may not be what happened. I will present the evidence I have uncovered and let everyone else judge for themselves.

The first thing that caused me to question the conventional wisdom was the letter below, which was posted by galvanic1882 on AAPK. It is a letter on Walden Knife Company letterhead, dated August 27, 1926. The letterhead proclaims Walden Knife as "SOLE MAKERS OF THE CELEBRATED KEEN KUTTER POCKET KNIVES".

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Next I visited the website for the Walden and Walkill Vallery Historical Society. There I found this bulletin, for a talk on Walden Knife and Schrade, given by the Walden village historian back in 2016. Not the long title for the Walden Knife section - "Home of Keen Kutter Knives from 1874 to 1927".

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I joined the historical society and started emailing with the village historian. I have received some interesting information from her, but not yet exactly what I was hoping for. I was hoping she would have some information from village records (tax records etc) to back up the 1927 closing date of the Walden Knife plant. When I get more information I will post it.

Will continue in the next post.
 
Also available on the WWVHSC (www.thewaldenhouse.org), is an excerpt from a book "Old Walden" by String Cooper. Below is the link to this:

http://www.thewaldenhouse.org/LHD 2012/Knife Industry.pdf

The quote below is from about the middle of page 4.

"During World War I government contracts kept the factory operating to full capacity. One of the major items produced were large knives for the Navy. After the armistice there was a sharp decline in the demand for pocket cutlery. E. C. Simmons Company, being in a precarious financial situation merged with the Winchester Arms Company who were as bad off with their large munitions factories standing empty, and started making knives in their Bridgeport, Connecticut factory. The Walden plant started down hill. They continued working in a small way until 1927 when they closed their doors for the last times."

Through searching old newspapers, I found the article below. It is from the Warwick Advertiser, dated July 27, 1922. I talks about a visit by President Otterson, of the Winchester Arms-Simmons Hardware Co., to the Walden Knife plant. At the end of the day he gathers the plant foreman and assures them that operations will continue as usual at the Walden plant.

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I also have two newspaper articles giving an exact closing date for the Walden Knife plant. One is from the Ithaca Journal, dated April 16, 1927 and the other is from the Walden Citizen Herald, dated April 14, 1927. Both state that the Walden Plant will shut down on April 30, 1927. The Ithaca Journal article also states that the 175 employees had been notified.

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Page 1 of Citizen Herald,published in Walden, New York on Thursday, April 14th, 1927.jpg



There is the notice for the Public Auction of the Walden Knife Co. equipment available on www.collectors-of-schrades-r-us.com as below:

http://www.collectors-of-schrades-r.us/Walden/Walden.pdf

The list of equipment up for auction is over 20 pages long. I have looked through it and don't see as much of some types of equipment (grinders, anvils etc) as I would expect, but, it is still quite an extensive list.

That is pretty much a summary of what I have to date. As I said, I am still hoping for more from the Walden village historian, and will post information as I get it.
 
zxcvbjhngkbcvxcfbjbcx zxcvbjhngkbcvxcfbjbcx Very interesting! Never seen one like it by any maker.

Gevonovich Gevonovich Thanks, Gev! I also look forward to what this thread brings us! Beautiful examples!

SteveC SteveC Beautiful old cattle knife!

GE Jr GE Jr Thanks, GE! Not sure if the older ones have stamped bolsters or if it's the other way around.


danno50 danno50 Dan, thanks so much for sharing! That kind of information/research doesn't come without a lot of time and effort. Much appreciated!
 
Great research, Al and Dan!!! I look forward to further, as it occurs!!
Here are some older pics of Winchester knives. I will eventually take some more for this great thread!!
Three Barlows and a fancy Jack!!
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Two Harness Jacks , one with a Napanoch style punch!!Assort 3.jpg Assort 4.jpg
 
A couple of Pruners, Winchester, and a KeenKutter.:)
They have some similarities; I wonder if they were made in the same place??
View attachment 1285964 View attachment 1285966

I would not bet against it.
The tang stamp on the Keen Kutter is a variation I have not seen before. I have ST LOUIS / MO. and MADE / IN / USA, however, this is the first one I have seen with ST LOUIS / USA.
 
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