Welcome Home...THANK YOU FOR BEING A PART OF OUR COMMUNITY

iKnife Collector

The online community of knife collectors, A Knife Family Forged in Steel

Where did the "patterns" come from?

In the past few months I've gotten interested in the traditional knives I grew up with. When I picture my childhood pocket knife I can see a medium stockman like I was holding it now. I had different ones and don't remember what patterns or brand but they were all similar. Now thanks to the ease of serching due to the internet I see there are several companies who make the same patterns. Stockman, congress, peanut, copperhead, etc. I am a little curious about how this came to be. Who started it? Just a brief history lesson will do. :) I have gotten the feeling in the past few days since spending time here some of you know the story well. :)

If this type of question should be in a different forum please move it if you want. I'm still getting aquainted with this place.

Jack

Tags: congress, jack, knife, patterns, peanut, stockman, trapper

3 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tobias Gibson on April 26, 2017 at 21:03

Of interest while everyone today seems to call the larger 5 inch toothpicks " toothpick" or "fish knife", Camillus originally called their knife a Switchback and described it as a folding bird and trout knife.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jan Carter on April 26, 2017 at 21:07

Tobias I had heard they were widely used for small game and that has always made more sense to me than they were used as fighting knives

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jan Carter on April 26, 2017 at 21:09

Camillus may have had to most correct description for this style blade

Tobias Gibson said:

Of interest while everyone today seems to call the larger 5 inch toothpicks " toothpick" or "fish knife", Camillus originally called their knife a Switchback and described it as a folding bird and trout knife.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Tobias Gibson on April 27, 2017 at 8:07

Jan said: "I had heard they were widely used for small game and that has always made more sense to me than they were used as fighting knives"

When you consider the muskrat is essentially a skinning knife with the two California clip blades, the style of blade that is found on older traditional toothpicks it makes sense. Today, the larger five inch toothpicks that are made in China use a standard clip. But Case's 4.5 inch and Bear & Sons 5 inch toothpick uses a more traditional Cali blade.

Smaller Navaja de Muella knives would have been a poor choice for fighting as well but it was not uncommon for the Navajas to be 7-11 inches long folded; making them formidable weapons. This was especially true as they could be opened with one hand and the blade locked open.

This is why some folks assume they were made for fighting; however their original purpose, like most knives was much more mundane.