Alex, I'm an old fan of A.G. Russell and have bought numerous knives from him. You will not be disapointed spending your knife money with him. He has drifted over toward selling alot more tactical knives lately and that's not my favorite but he has done what it takes to stay in buisiness.

My little Bertram Hen and Rooster is a small barlow 1970-80's 241ds in stag and stainless. It's in mint condition and I think I'm gonna like it when I get my hands on it. I'll post a picture at that time. If anyone knows anything about it please let me know. Thanks.

I picked up this Hen & Rooster CM-6 from A.G. a couple weeks ago.  Made around 1976 when A.G. owned H&R.

That's great! I have seen a CM-6 before but not with that sheild.

Robert,

The CM6 never had any other shield.

Yeah the shield thing kind of threw me off at first but I think I understand it now.  As far as I can tell, Hen & Rooster knives that were made prior to 1980 were made without shields.  The exception to that rule is the knives that A.G. Russell made during  for The Knife Collectors Club during his ownership.  Most of those had some type of bullet shield but A.G. opted for the arrowhead on this one.

I am still in the learning stage with H&R knives so if I am incorrect, someone please feel free to set me straight.  I am willing to learn as much as I can about them.

There were a few for importers like Voss that were ordered with shields. before WWII

Thanks A. G.

I see now the knife I was talking about was a CM-8 with a bullet or .219 Zipper cartridge. Yep Railsplitter I have alot to learn also. Thanks guys.

Here's a picture of my Bertram Hen & Rooster baby Barlow. Sweet!

Robert,

That is a fine looking knife indeed!

The picture doen't show the true beauty of this little jewel!

Robert,

I do not mean to be rude, but, it would be a great kindness if you would post pictures of Jim Frost's knives on his forum, rather than mine.  It is very painful to be reminded that he has owned the mark since 1980.

thanks,

A. G.

WHAT! This is supposed to be one of yours. It's a Bertram. That's the reason I bought it, I thought it was one of yours. I'm lost, Mr. AG. This knife was aged to be from the 70's to the 80's. The tang stamp is "Bertram..cutlery..Rostifrei..241DS. You are not being rude, but very helpful for a beginner like me. Please tell me where I went wrong.

yes mr.russell please tell us more all these knives since 1980 is frost knives?i don't understand...

Robert,

I don't know if I can help but I will try.  My knowledge is limited so please take this with a grain of salt.

Any Hen & Rooster knife with "Rostifrei" and/or a model number along the spine of the blade near the tang is a post-1980 knife.  I believe "Solingen" on the tang is also a sign of post-1980.  The shield with the hen and the rooster on it also depicts post-1980.

Your knife might very well be from the 80's but it is from later than 1980.  Most likely 1983 or newer.

A.G. owned Hen & Rooster from 1975 to 1980.  Before then they were owned by Mr. Bertram and his family members.  After 1980 they were owned by Frost and some other guy who's name I don't remember.

I thought that if it had Bertran on the tang stamp it was when Mr. AG. owned it and they had to change the stamp after it went through the courts. This is what I read in one of Mr. AG's catalogs. I still don't understand. I think I have been taken advantage of. Well, it won't be the first time....so sad.

Fellows,  any Hen & Rooster knife with a model number or with a Hen & Rooster inlay was made for Jim Frost after the Summer of 1980, first by Klaas and then by Boker and now in Spain.  If it says Bertram Cutlery then it is Frost.  An email with a photo to agr@agr3.com will always get you an answer sooner or later.

A. G.

Sorry, I did not see Railsplitter's post until I had already written the above

Thanks Mr. AG. I am so disapointed, it's not what I thought I was buying. It's got to go and I'll start over. Thanks so much for your time and help.

Robert,

I am really sorry, you misunderstood.  We used Bertram GmbR and they call theirs Bertram Cutlery.

Robert, if you paid $60 or 70 for the knife you got a good deal, if you paid $300 or $400 then you were robbed.

Well, thank you Mr. AG. I paid $55 dollars and thought I had made a great deal. The baby barlows you have for sale are just alike. You have some with wood for $125 and some with problem ivory for around $200. So I thought one with stag was worth some where in between. It's not your fault, just my rookie mistake. I will learn from this and become a better collector. Thanks so much for your time, Mr. AG.

If you want to see the real deal go to http://www.cuttingedge.com/ and look at the Hen & Roosters there right now there are some collector club knives made by Hen & Rooster when AG own them they are the CM 4, 5 , 7 & 8.  4 & 8 are barlows.  This site is run by AG's team and clear identfies the Hen Rooster knives a safe place to shop.

Stephen,

In early 1980 the German Government put Bertram GmbR into bankruptcy and when I tried to bid on the trademark they refused to allow me and sold the Bertram and Hen & Rooster trademarks to Jim Frost.  Since the Summer of 1980 ALL Hen & Rooster knives made have been at the order of Frost.

                                HOWEVER

When they took the company away from me and put every body in the shop out of work, I had over 3,000 knives on hand, as well as the antiques that I bought when I bought the company.  In the more than 30 years since then I have sold almost all of those knives and have few besides the antiques left.

I know all about the Cuttingedge, and the knives on there. This is why we have a good forum, to learn from our mistakes in this hobby of knife collecting. A knife advertised to be made in the 1970's should have been made when Mr. AG. owned the company. Instead it was made in the 1980's. I hope this helps other collectors not make the same mistake I did. I can live with it, I still have a fine little knife in great congition at a fair price.Although, It's not what I wanted. Thanks again Mr. AG.

Robert,

If you will get one real Hen & Rooster knife from pre 1980 and study it, inside and out you will never again be fooled.

That's my plan, I am looking hard at that Vest Pocket Skinner CM-7.

Congrats, Mr. A.G.!

Well, I finally pushed myself over the ledge and ordered the 2011 Texas Ranger. And because I figured it wouldn't like to travel alone across the ocean I got the Ultimate pen knife and the 3 inch titantium lockback and cooking tweezers to travel with it!

Just noticed that mr. Russell is bringing another one of his designs to life. Congratualtions mr. Russell.

I didn't realise he had movies on YouTube. Maybe he should publicise them a bit more on his website. Perhaps the movies could talk about what kind of work each knife is best suited for, and show it in action? What do you think?

Totally agree. One of the maine problems with A.G. Russell's website is the size and quality of the pictures. Personally I've never seen worse pictures on a website. But the videos they make could solve everything.

Alexander,

thanks for the order.  Please list for me the 5 top web sites that I can go to to see how my photographs should look. 

thanks for the help

A. G.

mr. Russell, I'll have a look around for websites (vendors) that I do like the photo's of.  The main issue that I have with the pictures on your site is that they're a bit grainy, somewhat vague. Half the time I have a hard time believing that it's a picture and it looks more like a painting type thing.

I'll have a look around though.

Regards

Alexander

I have to agree that the pictures are low resolution and sometimes it's hard to get a feel for how big a knife is (measurements only help a bit). Examples - try Vintage knives, www.vintageknives.com, especially 'view more pictures'; www.dozierknives.com, especially 'featured inventory', and www.arizonacustomknives.com. AG Russell pictures are clearly done professionally, they just need to be larger and in high resolution. The 'biggest' view tends to only be a bit bigger. Setting the knife next to familiar objects would help show the scale of the knife, too. 

Those are pretty good indeed Stephen. I agree trhat it's probably the resolution of the photo's. To me they also seem a little too "photoshopped". They might not be. But something about them doesn't look quite right.

Another site that has it down pretty well is Les Robertson's site: http://www.robertsoncustomcutlery.com/

Monkey Edge is a pretty good one as well: http://www.monkeyedge.com

Howe's knifeshop is pretty good: http://www.howesknifeshop.com

I'll browse around some more. Offcourse none of these shops have the advantage of beind able to carry the Russell designed knives OR the fantastic garantee that A.G. offers. But the pictures they do are done very well.

Here's an A.G. Russel I have been having for a while. I have seen the value of this knife go up on Ebay by $50-60 since I bought it.

Good looking knife Robert!

Nice loveless style blade that Robert! Is it that small or is that simply a very large coin?

The knife measures nine inches, I think. That's a one ounce silver English coin.

Not as small as I thought then. Very nice piece though.

And Les Swalm...that look REALLY nice as well. Can you tell me a little bit more about that one?

Yea, Les, thats a fine AG Russell knife. I think it's called a "Chute" knife. I'll let Les give the info.

Yes, it is the chute knife from AGR with Ivory handle really sweet.

"How Sweet It Is", Les that is one sweet little knife, you are lucky to have one. You will never waste your money buying an AG. Russell, it will hold it's value.

Well, got my package. The 2011 Texas Ranger is a monster of a slipjoint.

Here you see it next to a standard size lagioule for reference....and that lagioule is NOT a small knife. I love it though. The fit of one of the scales is a little less than what I was used to from the 2010 texas ranger. But still quite good.

Also love those little titanium handled knives. Excellent backups or for when you want to slip something unobtrusive in the pocket. Although the Ultimate pen knife is smaller than I expected.

Used the cooking tweezers in a BBQ yesterday. Excellent cooking tool and wonderfull companion to my folding Hocho. Shame that I had to pay such a large sum on import duties again....(€32 or close to $40) as well as shipping. The knives were placed in a MASSIVE box. But hey, it got here so I'm happy.

Alex, great set of knives, too bad about that import duty. I just recieved a Hen and Rooster knife from the time period that Mr. AG. owned it. I'd love to post a picture, maybe later.

Yeah. I'd still like to order from mr. Russell. For instance...the new 2012 Texas Ranger will be on the website any moment soon.

But this time I'll have my brother's girlfriend take it to the netherlands for me. It'll save on shipping and on import duties....giving me the knife at the price that it was meant to sell for.

Thanks Steve, I need to check on that. Oh, thanks alot about the heads up on free shipping from SMKW this past weekend. I took advantage of it.

Over a period of three days I had 4 or 5 opportunities to speak with a representative at A.G.Russell names Phil.  We spoke about the first iKC knife, about NRA and AKTI and about many other things.  I did have an opportunity to tell him that Mr. Russell is on my personal list of Most Admired Knife Company owners.  He seems to have the ability to stay in touch with his customers.  Phil said to me that he has never changed how he views the customers, from the very first one to the last person to buy a knife from them.  KUDO's Mr. Russell and thanks for caring!