"Old Knives"

P&G - what Charlie said about your Scout my friend! Great Knife! It has a lot of features - that Bone really stands out!

Charlie - I sometimes have a hard time believing what I am looking at when you post some of your outstanding Knives! Yet another amazing group!!
Could you also tell us about the Trading Beads in all 4 photos please Sir?

Cal, every time you post - you brighten the day - especially with that one my friend!
 
Picked up this Fox Cutlery Co large dog-leg, really a well made knife with ebony that has some faint brown streaks in it. I can find next to nothing about Fox other than they were in Wisconsin and may date back to the 1800's. I don't think they made their knives and most came from Germany. This one is not marked Germany and is very similar to my Ulsters. Anyone know anything about Fox?


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Augie Augie
Beauty John, you have the eye my friend... those blades look possibly stroped, yet not sharpened, ever:eek::thumbsup::thumbsup:
I’ve heard of them in the past, very little if any, info available.
 
waynorth said:
Some of the Empire-made scouts found in my search for Empires!!
Lakeside was a sub-contract for Montgomery-Ward!!:cool:

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Campbellclanman said:
Could you also tell us about the Trading Beads in all 4 photos please Sir?
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Duncan, the greenish Heishi are beads made from Cerillos Turquoise, considered to be the oldest mining area in Southwest Native culture!
The beads are from ~1910-1930.
The second one, called Russian Blues, actually made in Murano, from the fur-trade era, with coin-silver cast beads. Coins were actually melted to make them!
Third, red-over-white beads called White-Hearts, also drawn in Murano!
The string under them is a replica of a native Canadian necklace, using old beads, with more modern bone tube beads, that I made, now belonging to one of our fellow Porchites!!
The last ones are in an antique Mediterranean Coral necklace I brought back from Florence several years ago. From a small shop on the Ponte Vecchio!!
Knife content;
A Stivale, very large, often presented as a wedding present! They had a Lenticchia at the tip, obviously removed, mandated by law (humph!!:mad:) at the time it was made, to resist stabbing!!:rolleyes:
Stivale 1.jpg
Found on the internet, a knife with La Lenticchia (in English, a lentil!),
On the tip!!lenticchia 1.jpg
 
Augie said:
Picked up this Fox Cutlery Co large dog-leg, really a well made knife with ebony that has some faint brown streaks in it. I can find next to nothing about Fox other than they were in Wisconsin and may date back to the 1800's. I don't think they made their knives and most came from Germany. This one is not marked Germany and is very similar to my Ulsters. Anyone know anything about Fox?


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Looks like Fox Cutlery was born out of "Koeller & Schmitz Cutlery" & "E Lothar Schmitz" which definitely appears to have German roots. I've found quite a few examples online of razors and pocket knives made by Koeller & Schmitz so they may have started out selling the German made cutlery but eventually got forced out by the tariffs and domestic makers? Either way, cool find John!

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Augie said:
Picked up this Fox Cutlery Co large dog-leg, really a well made knife with ebony that has some faint brown streaks in it. I can find next to nothing about Fox other than they were in Wisconsin and may date back to the 1800's. I don't think they made their knives and most came from Germany. This one is not marked Germany and is very similar to my Ulsters. Anyone know anything about Fox?


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Looks a bit like this one:
SjaH93A.jpg


Tang stamp says "Wedgeway Cutlery Co Made in USA." I looked around but didn't find much about Wedgeway. Anyone ever heard of them?
 
waynorth said:
@veitsi_poika
Thanks for that information on Fox, Kevin!! I have wondered about this HJ!!
The etch looks like the correct Fox!! I managed to bring it up on close-up.View attachment 1549383 View attachment 1549384
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No problem Charlie... I found quite a few pictures of razors that had the Koeller & Schmitz name and they used that Fox logo so I think it is the same company that eventually became "Fox Cutlery Co"... Probably to sound more "American" at the time. In fact if you look up Koeller & Schmitz in Goins it has that Fox logo shown :thumbsup:
 
cheesemaster said:
Looks a bit like this one:
SjaH93A.jpg


Tang stamp says "Wedgeway Cutlery Co Made in USA." I looked around but didn't find much about Wedgeway. Anyone ever heard of them?
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Goins attributes Wedgeway Cutlery to Morley Bros Hardware based in Michigan. It was established by German immigrants in the 1860s. A lot of their knives look like early Camillus models which to me makes sense as WH Morley & Sons was a trademark of A Kastor (aka Camillus). Cool knife!

Edit: one of the co-founders of Morley Bros Hardware was German but the Morley's themselves were from Morley, West Yorkshire, England :)
 
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Thank you for the low down on those gorgeous Beads Charlie!!
Now Charlie that’s a real nice HJ! ;) Love everything about it!

Augie it’s strange as I was going through some of my knives and I have three USA Fox Cutlery Knives that I oiled and waxed just the other day!
Two HJ’s and one Jack.
Does yours have the remnants of a etch faintly there at all my friend? I’m guessing it would have had one.
 
Campbellclanman said:
Thank you for the low down on those gorgeous Beads Charlie!!
Now Charlie that’s a real nice HJ! ;) Love everything about it!

Augie it’s strange as I was going through some of my knives and I have three USA Fox Cutlery Knives that I oiled and waxed just the other day!
Two HJ’s and one Jack.
Does yours have the remnants of a etch faintly there at all my friend? I’m guessing it would have had one.
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Thanks everyone for the comments and information on Fox, much appreciated. Duncan, no sign of etch but I suspect knife had light cleaning.

Duncan, are any of yours marked Germany? Charlie, is your harness jack marked Germany?
 
Another of the unusual ones I picked up last week, this one a Humason & Beckley Manufacturing large. 4" stag equal end jack. H&B was around late 1850's until 1912. I see many of their knives with stag and horn covers, more so than other makers of the time. Despite good honest use this heavy jack is still tight and snappy. An unusual feature of this H&B is the match strike pull in the swedge, makes sense from a leverage standpoint.


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