The cost of a new pocket knife (then and now)

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DrPenguin

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Mar 2, 2005
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Had a little time to relax a bit at work this afternoon and did something I have wanted to do for a long time: browse the sticky posts at the top of the forums. In particular I found the one of old knife advertisements fascinating.

What surprised me was the price on these knives.

I have always heard that traditional knives were the working man's knife. That they were, by and large, inexpensive and disposable. I'll admit that this always conflicted with the part of me that remembered that so many of these knives were well cared for and carried for LONG periods of time. I figured maybe we were romanticizing things just a tad. Maybe the knives really weren't that cheap compared to today's offerings.

The first ad was from Hibbard, Spencer, and Bartlett Co in 1886. The average US income (via google) for that time period was about $2.50 per day. Looking at their knives (which were wholesale priced I assume) they started at $2 to $3 per dozen for a single blade with iron liners. Ah, not so bad. An hour's work we'll say for a single knife by the time markup and shipping are included.

But then I started seeing the Ulsters and eased into the German Silver bolsters and brass liners. Multiple blades were added as I went along. The price per knife started easing up. Suddenly you had knives getting up into the $1 range after you ship it and mark it up. Looking at the pearl and stag handled knives gets you up to the $2 to $3 range at the listed price. But by and large it looks like $1 and change could get you a brass lined, GS bolstered knife with a couple blades and maybe ebony handles. Maybe half a days pay. Twice that for a top of the line stag or pearl knife.

When I look at today's traditional knives it kind of looks the same. Average pay is maybe $45k. You've got an average Joe making $900 a week and seeing maybe $125 of that a day. He can get out the door with a pretty nice Case or Boker for half a day's pay. He can nail down a very nice GEC with all the bells and whistles for a days wages.

All the sudden my theory that knives were more expensive back in the day doesn't hole water. Can't say for certain why the old timers I knew managed to go through so few knives. Nor why they seemed to treasure them much more than we seem to now. Maybe money just meant more to them back then?

I any event I wanted to give a hat tip to the guys who posted scans of the old knife ads. It was very enjoyable reading and I loved seeing what the guys back then had to choose from.

Will
 
Interesting post, Will!:thumbup:

One factor that I think may account for any variance, then just as now, you had knife nuts, and then you had a working guy who really didn't care about a knife, but needed one in his working day. I'd bet that there was a ton of cheap iron bolster knives that got worn down or broken being used and abused. Pried with, not oiled and rusted up, and tossed out. To some foldks, a knife is just a weird shaped screw driver or can opener. If it breaks, they just go get another one.

Then you'd have the guys like us, the afflicted and obsessed. The knife nuts. They would buy a nice higher dollar trapper or two blade jack, and treat it right. Make it last for 20 years or more, then hand it down to a grandson who would treat it like the family sword of old.

The fact that the old catalogues show both extremisms of product, the cheap single blade iron bolster, and the nice mother of pearl gentleman's pocket knife, bears out a wide customer base.

Carl.
 
Interesting topic for sure, and good points raised by both of you. Perhaps another part of the explanation for why knives lasted longer had a little to do with the difference in American culture back then as well.

A large part of the population was rural back then, and most adult males carried a knife because they were necessary tools for everyday life. With today's population being urban, and with today's electronic culture, the most a pocketknife gets used for is opening packages by most of us.

Quite a change from using one to repair a harness, open feed sacks, bales of hay, or a can of beans or motor oil. Kind of like the old fountain pens, they still work, but have been replaced by more modern technology.
 
My blue bone Case mini copperhead opened 3 pieces of mail and two small priority mail packages. One with some probiotics for my cat farm (Duncan's term) and a oak handled Case sway back jack for me. All in all, not really that much work involved for it today. It should last me two lifetimes if that is going to be typical over it's life span.

Ed J
 
From my 1884 and 1886 HSB catalogs, plus a couple others from around 1902, I think the average knife would have cost close to the average laborer's day's wages at retail price. For someone earning $15/hour today, that would translate to about $100-120, so the comparison to some of the nicer GEC offerings may not be far from the mark.

I don't know where the $2.50/day wage comes from. A lot of the historical sources that I have seen show typical labor jobs (ranch, mine, farm) in the 1880s to be around $1/day. Some paid more; miners in the Comstock in the 1860s and 1870s were paid a premium because those particular mines were more dangerous than the average mine. Maybe a lot of town/urban jobs in stores, skilled trades, etc brought the average up.

The other part of the equation is that, in general, knives were used hard and used up, and were replaced often. In the 1920s Remington did a survey and found that the average half life of a pocket knife was about two years. Later on in the 1930s when Imperial started churning out cheap shell-handled knives by the millions, the type of people who today buy the $5 made-in-china truck stop knives would have gotten by with a 25 or 50 cent Imperial.
 
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jackknife said:
Interesting post, Will!:thumbup:

One factor that I think may account for any variance, then just as now, you had knife nuts, and then you had a working guy who really didn't care about a knife, but needed one in his working day. I'd bet that there was a ton of cheap iron bolster knives that got worn down or broken being used and abused. Pried with, not oiled and rusted up, and tossed out. To some foldks, a knife is just a weird shaped screw driver or can opener. If it breaks, they just go get another one.

Then you'd have the guys like us, the afflicted and obsessed. The knife nuts. They would buy a nice higher dollar trapper or two blade jack, and treat it right. Make it last for 20 years or more, then hand it down to a grandson who would treat it like the family sword of old.

The fact that the old catalogues show both extremisms of product, the cheap single blade iron bolster, and the nice mother of pearl gentleman's pocket knife, bears out a wide customer base.

Carl.
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All true, and to me, spot on. My grandfather was indeed a "working man", and knives were simply tools. He never fondled or caressed his knives, never collected any and only bought a new one when he wore out the one he had or found one that would do what he wanted better than the one he had.

My father like nicer knives, and had a few. He started out blue collar in the 30's, but then went to white collar. He bought some nicer knives with fancier scales on them, but with his upbringing and three kids at home couldn't justify paying a day or two of wages on a pocket knife. He is the one that settled me on CASE and Boker early on back in the 60s. At that time those two made classic working and hunting patterns of great build and great utility value. Plus, a bunch of them were good looking, too!

I would find fault though with the idea of a working man that makes about $45,000 year. The carpenters that work for me average (some higher, some lower) $20 an hour. Carpenter's helpers make $10 to $12, with a good one making $15 if his lead man thinks he is worth it. My painter is $20, his helper is $12. My laborers are paid $10. Certified Journeyman, licensed plumbers and electricians make the most and might make the 45K mark. Their helpers make about $15. My roof repair tech makes $35 an hour, so he would make your estimate, but he only works when he can which is about half of the year.

Home Depot and Lowe's start their folks out at $8 an hour here, and it is not uncommon to double your money with them (if you take their classes for training) and be a the $15 dollar mark in a couple or three years. You can start higher of course if you bring some experience and a good resume. But I assure you, most of the warehouse guys, material handlers, and stockers are making around $12. These are indeed working men and women, and they won't part with $50 to $150 for a "working man's knife" to be used in the warehouse cutting strapping, heavy boxes, cutting up packaging, cutting fiberglass tape, doing some light scraping, etc. Unless they live at home, they simply can't afford to.

And since those of us in construction only work when the weather permits, when there is no down time between projects, and no days waiting on material shipments, it seems pretty inflated to think the average "working man" is making $45 a year on a routine basis. I pay too many of them myself. I don't know how that impacts your equation...

But the good news is that to get the job done you don't have to have a $125 GEC or their type. There are indeed plenty of hard working knives available out there that still get the job done like the Queen and CASE soddies that are such a steal it is incredible. I worked with a guy a few years ago that had found "the ultimate reusable working knife" as he described it when showing me his Opinel #8. He bought them a couple at a time.

I don't see that many traditional patterns out on the job anymore, mostly just in the pockets of older guys like me. The traditional knives, their materials and construction techniques have passed pretty much into romantic legend on the job site. But the knives with hard stainless blades, micarta or G10 scales, and in some cases a pocket clip have proven themselves to be almost indestructible on the job. And speaking as a "working man" it's mostly about utility value. You can buy a Kershaw made in the USA that requires almost no maintenance that you can use to the point of borderline abuse and it will take it day after day for years. And if it doesn't, there is always their famous lifetime warranty.

I think the CNC cut, screwed together knives have just about replaced the traditional patterns completely for EDC job site use. Me, I carry both all the time. But for most of my colleagues where utility is king, they want the strongest knife they can get with the least maintenance required. These CNC knives are perfect for them. They can buy a USA made product that works like the dickens and is still vastly under the dollars needed to buy a comparable traditional knife with the same blade shapes and sizes. Since they buy them as tools, they attach no feelings of sentimentality to a knife or any feeling of inheriting the legacy of those that used the same patterns before them. So I don't know what you would consider "a working man's knife" in today's world when making Dr. Penguin's original assumptions.

So it is a matter of preference. I prefer both! I like a good traditional pattern and will pay to get what I want, but also want a good modern design/construction I can beat the daylights out of without breaking the bank.

Robert
 
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Carl, that was something that grabbed me too. Today's traditional knives ~usually~ have brass liners and nickel steel bolsters. It was apparent after a couple of pages of those wonderful old ads that although this was a normal mix of materials it wasn't all they had to choose from. All iron construction was normal and single blade knives were quite common. Another big surprise to me was the prevalence of wood handles. Growing up as I did I thought redbone and stag were about the only materials used, lol. It was obvious that a lot of wood handled knives were made as well back then.

Ed and Bonky, that is something I would heartily agree with. It seems like they would get used a lot less nowadays doesn't it? My knives get the most use when I am gardening or hunting or fishing. Once in a while at work or opening up a package or whathaveyou. But I think that these are areas where the old traditionals really shine. I've seen firsthand guys trying to chop the hide off a squirrel with their modern/survival type knives and it ain't pretty. :)

Lambertina, I looked at it and there was an article on a book on salaries in the 1880s and one on average US income back then that I got the number from. If anything I took a slightly higher number than was considered normal according to them. But that number was what some of the more skilled hourly guys averaged. Kind of hard to know for sure but it kind of looks like the average knife for the average guy would be somewhere in the same neighborhood as today. Maybe a bit under a day's wages.

Robert for todays average I just took the median US income. I guess we all have backgrounds that can shift the outlook a bit. I grew up in a family headed by an equipment operator on heavy highway jobs. He set iron with cranes and ran excavators in cuts/fills that could and did run into the millions of cubic yards of material. My brother, a lot of uncles, and some cousins worked in the same field. TBH I did as well for about 6 years, although I only ran equipment once in a while, and that is how I saved up the money to go to college. But even back then they made more than $45k. A good many of the men on the jobs I worked did too but a whole lot of them were very skilled guys. Concrete finishers, iron workers, pipe layers, welders, heavy equipment operators and suchlike. I don't really know much about housing and carpentry work so I might not be in the ballpark for those fellows.

Will
 
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Here's my Moose, all HC steel, no fancy NS bolsters, no brass liners, yet someone used and loved this knife. They took care of it, yet somewhere along the line they used it hard enough to snap a blade and continued to use and sharpen it as you can see by the grind marks on the blade.

Yet still this knife has life, tight blades, no wobble, excellent walk and talk, smooth action medium pull on the blades, this blade had it been in someone else's hands it might just sit on a shelf or in a drawer.

Not me, it was a work knife 100 years ago, it's a work knife now, I wonder what something like this cost back in the day? I'm sure they had multiple grades of cutlery back then, kinda like the difference between, Cobolt/Husky, Craftsman and SnapOn tools.

The average home owner might buy Cobolt, the armchair/shade tree mechanic might buy Craftsman and the Tradesman SnapOn, I think this was also the case with pocket knives back then.

Back in the day the farm hand might buy a 25¢ Knife from the hardware store cardboard display, the businessman/salesman
might get a fancier Sunday go to meetin' knife and the guy that uses a knife as part of making a living would buy a higher end work knife like the Moosse Pattern above.
 
In the 1880s life moved at amuch slower pace for most people.
They did not own cars or any of our wonderfu l"time saving" devices of today.
To which I ask "Why is there so little time ?Why is everyone so busy?"
Probably they're working to pay it all off.
Back then the missus did the laundry by hand and baked the dinner on a woodfired range.
These people died young compared to those of today -many children died in infancy.
The people who actually travelled any distance would have done so for work-seasonal work or the army or navy.
The world was a slower place if that makes sense.
As an example -a few years ago in England I spent a week on a canal boat travelling from Reading to to Marlborough and back.
We were cruising and taking our time but it's still to a six day round trip equivalent to maybe an hours drive!
 
My grandfather grew up in the depression area in the appalachain mountains of east tn and southwest virginia. Back then a hammer brand was a dime and a case was around 1.50$. His whole family lived off the land; farming, logging, moonshining, and hunting for food. Back then he said working men carried large knives bc of their utilitarian purposes. He said white collar and boys carried small knives. He said they only had one pocketknife and when it was wore out they got another. Now around here the most popular knife on farms and construction jobs is the case trapper. I think it's the happy median of knives for most working folks. I've been naughty lately and carrying a Rick hinderer and its a great knife but it just lacks in real life function. I believe I'll sell it and get bout 25 yellow case trappers! Lol!
 
You know, one other thing that would have a powerful effect on it would be, disposable income.

I'd be willing to bet a good sum that our grandfathers who lived a rural life, ether farming or waterman, or whatever, had to put a good deal of what they earned right back into their farm or boat. Feed, equipment repair and maintenance, all would be taken off the top of what they made. Money was always tight, and worry over the next season was constant. A multiblade knife with brass bolsters would be a luxury over a single blade knife for business with cheaper iron bolsters and liners. A city guy with a job for a company maybe had more lee way, as he knew unless he really screwed up and got fired, he had a paycheck coming every week. Life was a bit more constant and predictable.

Of course WW2 blew all that to heck. The farm boys left the farm and went off to war, and saw the world. Learned to work on all kinds of stuff, and came back home not ready to just go back to the farm for the rest of their life. They spearheaded the grat post war migration to the new urban/suburban landscape of the new America. They got good paying jobs for big corporations, and maybe a little luxury came into their life. The old pickup gave way to nice cars, and TV sets, and maybe, if the man was so inclined, a nicer pocket knife than his daddy could ever have seen fit to indulge himself with.

The young professional 30 something now has a very much greater disposable income than his grandfather ever dreamed of. If they be any bit of a knife nut at all, I suppose that an upscale knife is in the pocket to go with the Lexus and Range Rover's I see the young professionals out of Washington D.C and Chevy Chase driving. No beat up old Ford's here. I don't think my granddad ever drove anything but an old well kept Ford. Dad went to Washington and drove Pontiacs. My taste is on the plain side, but my older boy drives a upscale Benz. I think what would have been upscale 50 years ago, is now just run of the mill. New materials, tight spec machining and manufacture methods, better product distribution, all mean more of a market for what used to be fancy.

I don't think our grandaddies could ever have foreseen the market we have now, no matter what they stuffed in that corncob.

Carl.
 
jackknife said:
You know, one other thing that would have a powerful effect on it would be, disposable income.
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Too true. That and a person's inclinations of course. It seems that most people today would balk at paying $50 for a pocketknife, but think nothing of spending that on their cell phone's data plan each month. Crazy considering that what they spend in a year would buy an heirloom quality knife from Ken, Jared, or Enrique.

- Christian
 
Carl, you have a good point regarding disposable income.

DrPenguin - From the catalogs and ads that I have seen, I think the majority of knives sold in the 1880s had wood handles (usually cocobolo or ebony) with a few having bone or stag, and some fancy ones with pearl or tortoise. Horn was also common. By about 1900, bone handles became much more common, and more numerous than wood handles.

All of the complete catalogs that I have show budget lines with iron liners and bolsters. I have a few iron-bound antiques in my collection. Aside from patina and the occasional pitting, they are just as robust as those with brass liners and nickel silver bolsters. If I had been around at that time, I would have had no qualms about buying an iron bound knife to save some money.
 
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jackknife said:
You know, one other thing that would have a powerful effect on it would be, disposable income.

I'd be willing to bet a good sum that our grandfathers who lived a rural life, ether farming or waterman, or whatever, had to put a good deal of what they earned right back into their farm or boat. Feed, equipment repair and maintenance, all would be taken off the top of what they made. Money was always tight, and worry over the next season was constant. A multiblade knife with brass bolsters would be a luxury over a single blade knife for business with cheaper iron bolsters and liners. A city guy with a job for a company maybe had more lee way, as he knew unless he really screwed up and got fired, he had a paycheck coming every week. Life was a bit more constant and predictable.

SNIP

I don't think our grandaddies could ever have foreseen the market we have now, no matter what they stuffed in that corncob.

Carl.
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Wow. Once again, nailed it. My folks were both raised in a very rural setting, one in farming country (first traffic light for the town was in the 80s) and the other in a desolate open almost desert region of New Mexico for part of his life.

Born in the 20s, they were children of the depression and were raised by parents that were bitter and jaded about how badly things were going compared to the roaring 20s before the crash.

Every single cent had a home, and although they hated it, the did a lot of bartering. Nothing spends like cash, but there wasn't much of it to go around. So a lot of horse trading went on for all goods and services. From the great crash to the end of the 40s, it was touch and go for both sides of the family. They grew a lot of what they ate, and the canning jars they used to "put back" vegetables were carefully saved and used year after year.

I remember my Dad telling me the story of being staged in Germany during the Korean war. While he was there, he brought my grandfather back a brand new Boker folding stockman, and two hunting knives (that I have) from Germany. Both had stag handles and according to my Dad were quite nice specimens. He bought the on base before coming home and gave them to my grandfather when he got here.

My grandfather wouldn't carry the Boker folder for years as it was the nicest knife he had ever seen, and certainly ever owned. It stayed in a box in his closet, a safe queen, a collected piece until one day he finally decided to carry it. It fell out of a hole in his pocket and he never forgave himself. The hunting knives saw a fair amount of use because he hunted to put food in the freezer.

No, not his freezer... he rented an area at the packing plant as did all his buddies to keep their deer and other game until they were ready to process or eat it. He used the hunting knives because he couldn't afford anything that nice himself for years, and he loved using them. Before them, he used a large CASE stockman to clean deer, and simply used a hatchet to break the pelvis, and a wood saw (!!) to cut off the feet. That old CASE was also his favorite fishing knife as well. My Uncle swears that Grandad only had 2 - 3 folders in all of his memories of growing up hunting, fishing and camping with him.

Yes, times were very different then. The thought of spending two days wages (cleared after taxes) on a knife would never, ever have occurred to Grandad. He loved CASE, thought they were excellent value and good working knives. I don't know how much time he had to work to buy one, but I would find it hard to believe it was more than a half day's wage.

Robert
 
Enjoyed reading your posts Carl and Robert :thumbup:
 
jackknife said:
You know, one other thing that would have a powerful effect on it would be, disposable income...

I don't think our grandaddies could ever have foreseen the market we have now, no matter what they stuffed in that corncob.

Carl.
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Good point Carl. Disposable income is where the rubber meets the road. Doesn't matter how much you pull in if you don't have much left at the end of the month to buy ~stuff~. I'm not sure how much folks had left over back then but I am pretty sure it wasn't a whole lot. And I would add that a lot of the stuff most would consider necessary would have been considered nothing of the sort by our grandads.

As far as the second part of the quote I would agree wholeheartedly. And I would add that neither would the companies that made knives. I would guess we have a heck of a lot more collections as a percentage of knife owners than they did back then. The fraction of knives that are going to be put to work, used up, and then replaced would have to be a lot less now than back then. Especially among traditional knives.

But I would hasten to add that I know a heck of a lot of guys that have literally dozens of high dollar fixed blade hunting knives, modern and traditional folders of all types, and, heaven forbid, a solid dozen elk rifles. Even guys who have never once looked at an elk through the crosshairs. I kid you not. Not that I am complaining one bit mind you. I appreciate that there are guys who buy dozens of knives every year. These folks have shored up the market for the occasional purchaser like myself and I love that they have encouraged the manufacture of high quality old fashioned knives.

Robert your dad seems to have the same system of deer processing that I have. In all honesty that is probably the best way I know of to do it. The hunting life and traditional knives go hand in hand. Looking at the older fellows that hunted and fished in my upbringing gives a similar picture to you father. My own father was very particular about his equipment but he bought good stuff and then used it until it was used up... and that takes some using as his old Frontier folding hunter attests. And he was very typical for the day.

Unfortunately I am not sure that the modern US lifestyle could support the array of quality traditional knife makers if everyone acted like your father and mine. You just don't go through that many knives in a lifetime by opening mail and an odd package now and then. And a whole lot of us, like it or not, work in jobs where a lot of the job has little or nothing for a pocket knife to do. That is why I started the thread 'Did your knife get a workout today?' I wanted to encourage everyone, including myself, to put their knives to work and show everyone else how they had used them.

As a complete aside, I do agree that we have more disposable income now, with the caveat that I see that changing every year. I would venture that things are changing rapidly around us and that I would not be a bit surprised (if they freeze dried me now and thawed me out in a hundred years) to find that this had been reversed completely. I think the flocking of folks to the cities and suburbs may have reached a high water mark in the last decade or so as well. These two together lead me to believe that the separation of man from the outdoors of the last couple handfuls of decades may be coming to an end... but that is another thread entirely. :)

Will
 
Stole a few minutes to look at some more of the ads and found a couple old friends.

Post #36 has a knife labeled #E2622. We would recognize it as the #68 White Owl spear. Ebony handled and priced at $16.00/dozen in 1928 from Everkeen. Post #37 has the clip version of this same knife going for 40 cents in a 1900 Sears catalog. Pretty whopping price difference even considering the almost 30 year time difference. I also saw what looked to be the exact version of GEC's conductor 33 knife in both pen and whittler versions in the Everkeen models.

Those are some old designs! :)

Will
 
kamagong said:
Too true. That and a person's inclinations of course. It seems that most people today would balk at paying $50 for a pocketknife, but think nothing of spending that on their cell phone's data plan each month. Crazy considering that what they spend in a year would buy an heirloom quality knife from Ken, Jared, or Enrique.

- Christian
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Christian, my oldest son John is a perfect example of that. He does not really like carrying a knife, does not really even care about knives, but he knows that once in a while he needs a sharp tool. So he carries a Victorinox classic on his keychain, and that's it. He can't see spending more than 10 bucks on a knife. But...he thinks nothing of being in line at the Apple store for the latest and greatest technology breakthrough. Never mind that the smart phone, super phone he already has will do anything he really needs to, but God forbid he us asked to spend more than a measly 10 dollars on his keyring pocket knife. :eek:

I don't know where I went wrong!:confused:

Carl.
 
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