Your oldest Schrade companies hunting knives?

Codger_64

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I know that for most of you, the plethora of Schrade Cut Co, Schrade Walden, Schrade, Imperial, Kingston and Ulster pocketknives and even folding hunters are your first love and the focus of your collections. But for some of us the fixed blade hunting knives are the focus. I dearly love seeing all of the beautiful knives you guys bring here for our viewing pleasure, but I also miss seeing the hunting knives.

I don't have that many really early Schrade hunting knives. It seems that the Camillus affiliated knives of this genre are easier to find. Some of mine go back to the 1930's, and if you count the imported A. Kastor brandings, back to the early 1900's. Schrade Walden era hunting knives are much easier to find. I have a yet-unproven thory that prior to WWII, Schrade Cut Co made few if any hunting knives. They had them made for them by some other maker. From the examples I have seen, Kinfolks is one suspect. I know they made them for Cattaraugus and Case, as well as their own Kinfolks and Jean Case brandings.

Here ia a Schrade Cut Co hunting knife #365.

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And this is a Kingston hunting knife.

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Anyone have a idea who actually made these? Do you have other examples?
 
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Michael, I'm almost 100% positive that Kinfolks made the early Cut. Cos. The blade profiles and handles were pretty much identical, plus, it always helps if the manufacturer's intials are on the handles:

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Eric
 
Michael, it's model #25. I've also seen the identical handle on a Kinfolks knife that looked identical to the Schrade, only the handle was a brick red instead of black. I wonder if there was an outsourced manufacturer for these handles?

Eric
 
Dunno. Maybe Kinfolks did them inhouse, or possibly the same company that made pistol grips for Colt, S&W and others made them.

Here is another pattern that Rich Langston posted the last time we discussed the SCC fixed blades back in '06. It is a #362 Outers pattern, and he stated that it was the only Cut Co fixed blade he had at the time. And that, like myself, he had never seen catalogs or magazine illustrations showing SCC hunting knives. I tend to agree with him that until at least WWII, SCC did not make any hunting knife patterns inhouse.

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This pattern is a "copy" of Western States' first hunting knife introduced in 1928, and then copied by Marbles circa 1932, and then seen marked as a Remington UMC RH-4, as an Imperial (with cursive script branding), Cattaraugus, Robeson, Case and several other maker's marks.

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G'day Codger, Do you know if your 365 knife Sheath is original to your knife?
I have identical markings on my Schrade Cut Co fixed blade sheath and I do believe identical sheath patterns have been shown with Kinfolks knives on Bernard Levines Forum.
Might be an outsource sheath maker common to all fixed blade makers at that time however I will bet my left one that Kinfolks was the manufacturer of the Schrade Cut Co Fixed blades in the 30's/40's? and as you are aware I have 3 different pattern Schrade Cut Co fixed blades including one with finger grooves to the leather rings handle later adopted by Schrade for the 49'er Benchmark series of the 70's. All the Cut Co's have differing tang stamp fonts as well from memory.I also have the earlier model Cut Co fixed from the 20's/30's? as well which resembles the early Camillus fixed blades from WW11.
Larry V has photos of all 3 fixed blade Cut Co knives somewhere in his cavenous photo vault if interested and the photos are also archived on Bernard Levines Forum relating to a previous Kinfolks question. Hoo Roo
 
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Yes Larry, I believe that sheath is original to the knife. And darn you anyway, I am half blind now. I've spent the entire day going hither, thither and yon looking at old catalogs, websites and evilbay comparing knives and sheaths.

Yes, it appears that our Schrade Cut Co. knives were indeed made for them by Kinfolks Inc. as were the black plastic handled knives and "Outers" patterns for Imperial and SCC. Those were made for Cattaraugus with the handle logo blanked to a smooth round circle. Dean Case shows one with Jean Case tang stamp that retains the "circle K" Kinfolks logo as above.
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Mine, as I said, has the Hammerbrand logo tang stamp and matching handle logo.

I haven't compared all of the hunting knives in the 1936 Imperial catalog to those in the Kinfolks (1939 is the earliest I have found so far), but it would not surprise me to learn that many if not most were made by Kinfolks. Alas, we still don't have early hunting knife lists or catalogs from Schrade Cut co, so the best we can do is to keep an ongoing list and descriptions of the ones that turn up and cross-reference them as we can.

The Kinfolks pattern number for the SCC Outers pattern belonging to Langston is #662.

The Kinfolks pattern number for my smaller Outers pattern Imperial is #6161.

The Kinfolks pattern number for my SCC #365 is... #9365. If what I understand is correct, the "9" first digit indicates an included sheath. And yes, it matches the design of mine exactly in the 1939 Kinfolks catalog.

This is the picture Larry posted of his three.
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This is the Cattaraugus that matches the SCC and my Hammerbrand.

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I spoke to Dean Case about these and unfortunately, he couldn't offer anything more postive except to say that Kinfolks did indeed sell knives to many cutleries besides WR Case and Sons and Cattaraugus. I haven't found another Remington example yet, but I will.

Dean tells how all of the factory records and catalogs were stored in his family's basement. When the local river left it's banks and roared down his street, all was lost. He is steadily working to rebuild a library of catalogs and photos of examples for Kinfolks Inc. on his website. So far, 1939 is his earliest catalog. Kinfolks was founded in 1927 and operated in Little Valley, NY until 1957 when Emerson Case of Robeson bought Kinfolks and kept the brand alive untill 1965.
 
Jeez! I can't imagine what that must have been like, it's the type of occurence you have nightmares about. If I happen to come across anything Kinfolks related out this way I'll be sure to let him know. Seems Kinfolks was quite the king of fixed blades back then:thumbup::thumbup:

Eric
 
Jeez! I can't imagine what that must have been like, it's the type of occurence you have nightmares about. If I happen to come across anything Kinfolks related out this way I'll be sure to let him know. Seems Kinfolks was quite the king of fixed blades back then:thumbup::thumbup:

Eric

I love doing this research, as if you can't tell. Before I am done, I hope to positively identify all know examples of Schrade Cut Co, early Imperial and Kingston hunting knives to their manufacturers.

The results so far have been quite satisfying, especially nailing down the maker of the little Outers pattern Imperial with the odd script logo stamp.

Likely Kinfolks was also the maker of those Remington knives I keep seeing like the RH4 which has the Remington script logo on them, BRL tells me they were contract made knives and that the script logo is the tell.

So far, I seem to have captured more photos of Kinfolks examples from eBay than Dean has received from collectors for his site. It would be a good thing, IMHO, if any of you guys could donate pictures of Kinfolks related knives in your collections. Doubly good if you have boxes, catalogs, papers, flyers or magazine ads to contribute.
 
The Kinfolks discussion pertaining to the Schrade Cut Co Fixed Blade knives...some really nice old Fixed blades shown here.....Hoo Roo
 
From my dad's collection I have a Kinfolks #9365 that looks almost exactly like the Schrade #365 except that i) the sheath is stamped with Kinfolks at the top; 2) the blade is stamped Kinfolks U.S.A.; and 3) the colored bands on the handle are reversed...red,black,red instead of black, red,black. Our knife has been barely used...any idea of what these old guys are worth??
 
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