Canoe origins?

Stich2442

Stich2442

Joined
May 6, 2012
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So I know in the past there’s been talk of Cattle knives and the Stockman evolution on the forum, I’m curious as to the Canoe pattern origins? All I’ve been able to dig up is it was supposedly a scaled down version of the cattle knife made more pocket friendly and showed up sometime around 1915. I’m just curious, I’ve grown to appreciate over the past few years the Copperlock introduced in 1997 and Mini Copperlock in 1998 for their pocket friendliness as being thin and snag free, for the same reasons I like the Canoe in the summer. Seems that all the original patterns with the Copperhead bolsters from Case as far as I can tell which includes the Copperhead, Canoe, Case Saddle Horn seems to appear sometime prior to 1915 seems sort of vague, were these released as a series at the time? I often look at my Canoe as a for lack of a better term as an equal end non locking Copperlock, so anyone have any solid history or I guess heck any folklore as there is not much out their in the pattern.

found this which I find curious as I’ve never seen a Canoe Jack but it sure does look cool

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I don't know. I've asked the same question.

I thought the 3 or more blade canoes were properly "gunboat canoes" or "gunboats"?

I have a 4 blade (Taylor) Hammer Brand whittler canoe. (no redundent blades like my Congress Whittler had, and it feels better in my hand than a Congress Whittler does.)
I think they called it a "gunboat".

Some here have called a 3 plus blade canoe a "gunboat canoe" or "gunboat" in the various show us your canoe threads.
 
I'm afraid I can't help here, but just as an observarion, canoes seem to be popular with German makers.
 
Stich2442 said:
That’s pretty cool

so I guess this is a pretty dead thread, I was hoping for some more history or insight but I guess there’s not much out there on the pattern
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I'm a big fan of the canoe pattern, and I've periodically tried to track down its history, but I sure haven't been able to find anything worth mentioning. :(

- GT
 
I'm only making an educated guess here, but thinking the pattern shape came about not for a type of task, or a type of trade, but rather for the simple purpose of covering the blade tangs when closed. Perhaps it was something appealing for a "Gentleman's" knife.

Canoeing is another interest of mine. A few years ago I bought a restored wood/canvas "courting canoe." These boats had very upswept ends and were very poplar in the late Victorian age in America, especially in Boston/New England.

Symmetry was something that grew in popularity, at least in regards to architecture, during this period as well. My point is that all of this aligns with the 1915 timeframe mentioned by the OP.

So I'm coming away from all this thinking this pattern likely arose for style and aesthetics. Of course I could be wrong.
 
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Perhaps it arose from the Hamm’s beer commercials of the ‘50s and ‘60s.
The insistent beat of the tom-tom.
“From the land of sky-blue waters
Comes the beer refreshing
Hamm’s the beer refreshing
Hamm’s”
as the iconic Hamm’s bear glides across a sylvan northern lakescape in his
CANOE.

From there, it is a brief and natural segue from the canoe to the knife shaped like a can...
Never mind.
 
Having done the same fruitless search, I haven't seen any examples that are pre WWII. A good sturdy pattern, very pocket friendly I have been carrying one a lot recently.
 
The canoe and copperhead have got to be related. It makes me wonder which came first. The canoe has a nice symmetry, but the enlarged bolster opposite the hinge end doesn't really serve a purpose. It might have been a strictly aesthetic design.
 
Pinemoon said:
I'm only making an educated guess here, but thinking the pattern shape came about not for a type of task, or a type of trade, but rather for the simple purpose of covering the blade tangs when closed. Perhaps it was something appealing for a "Gentleman's" knife.
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I agree with this. IMO, a canoe is really a double ended copperhead, which, as a jack, only has a bulge at one end. By moving the second blade to the other end, a slimmer, single spring configuration can result. Rides slimmer in the pocket and does not snag.

Both the Copperhead and the Canoe are named for their appearance.
 
I spent time this morning going through all the catalog images in the "Vintage Knife Catalogs and Ads" thread (one of the "stickies" on page 1) and didn't find a single canoe, which surprised me! Some of the catalogs are from late 19th century, which may predate the origin of the canoe pattern, but others are from mid-20th century, and I expected to find canoe examples in Keen Kutter or Sears catalogs. (Kind of a tedious task, so I may have overlooked something, but I'm fairly confident I didn't.)

- GT
 
5K Qs said:
I spent time this morning going through all the catalog images in the "Vintage Knife Catalogs and Ads" thread (one of the "stickies" on page 1) and didn't find a single canoe, which surprised me! Some of the catalogs are from late 19th century, which may predate the origin of the canoe pattern, but others are from mid-20th century, and I expected to find canoe examples in Keen Kutter or Sears catalogs. (Kind of a tedious task, so I may have overlooked something, but I'm fairly confident I didn't.)

- GT
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A lot of pages/images are missing, thanks to Photo Bucket getting greedy, a couple years ago. :( There may have been one (or more) canoe pattern on those no longer available catalog pages?

From my own "research"/searching, I think it is a post 1920-1930 pattern, so fairly "new".
 
Oops post

BF site is really herky jerky tonight, search isn't working and pics won't post.
 
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I know I read quite a while ago that the canoe knife bolster is all about covering up the protruding sharp corners on the blade tangs to keep them from snagging/tearing your pocket liners. I really think it is that simple and the fact that it looks like a native canoe ;)

From a production standpoint I imagine it is just cheaper and easier to use the same bolster on each end and keep it symmetrical. Personally I do not like the unsymmetrical look of copperheads but I am a bit of an OCD structural engineer so I guess that is normal :D

I also recall that the canoe pattern is one of American origin so the timeframe of early 1900's makes sense since the McKinley tariff's had "finally" kept foreign knives from dominating the market so maker's needed a gimmick to sell their name. The canoe pattern, trapper pattern and muskrat pattern all emerge in that 1920 range. I have a feeling that Case cornered the market on the canoe pattern first since the other major manufacturers were making trappers and muskrats. Just as the muskrat pattern was a modification of the trapper swapping the spey blade out for another clip/turkish clip, the canoe pattern was just a play on the cattle knife with the most popular model just having a spear and pen blade.

I think you either like the large but practical bolster or you hate it. Other manufacturers probably felt most people do not like the large bolsters which is why there were not many big U.S. maker's to pick up the pattern but it seems Boker, Klaas, Schlieper and other German maker's liked it. I think the Copperhead was made as a consolation for the people in between who like the practical bolster but hate the look of it on both ends :D
 
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My Price/Zalesky book has many Case knives in 1920 with that bolster on one or both ends which makes me think they developed the bolster first and then fit it to the patterns. They have a saddlehorn, folding hunter, clasp knife, copperhead, canoe and the 4-1/4" canoe they called the "gunboat".
 
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