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Help Identifying a well used knife

A coworker came to me wondering the age and make of a knife his dad used to carry. I'll attach a few pictures. What I can see is the oval shield has a diamond shape in it with D E and an arrow running through the letters. The main blade tang has some engraving on it that is covered with some rust, the best I could make out on it was possible "Imperial and a symbol, then underneath Prov. USA. The handles are amazing! The blades have some natural patina and have been used and sharpened quite a bit (wish it could talk!).

He also asked about cleaning it....I cautioned him on this one. I told him that this knife was great the way it was, but it can be his choice. I explained the beauty in the patina to him, but I'd like to know what would be a good recommendation in removing the rust spots without doing much damage to the history?

Thanks! !

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Permalink Reply by Jan Carter on January 20, 2017 at 21:49

It is a Diamond Edge by Imperial

Goins says Shapleigh Hardware used the Diamond Edge trademark from 1864-1960.
DE was also used by Norvell-Shapleigh from 1902-1915, and by Val Test from 1960-1965.
In 1967 Imperial acquired the trademark
I believe Taylor Brands, LLC, acquired the rights to the trademark Diamond Edge and the DE logo circa 2005, when they purchased the intellectual property of Imperial Schrade Corporation.

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KnifeMakerPermalink Reply by Andy Larrison on January 21, 2017 at 17:50

Thanks for the info Jan. It's funny, I came across a knife today at one of my go to places for knife hunting that looked almost identical to this one but in real nice shape.

Jan Carter said:

It is a Diamond Edge by Imperial

Goins says Shapleigh Hardware used the Diamond Edge trademark from 1864-1960.
DE was also used by Norvell-Shapleigh from 1902-1915, and by Val Test from 1960-1965.
In 1967 Imperial acquired the trademark
I believe Taylor Brands, LLC, acquired the rights to the trademark Diamond Edge and the DE logo circa 2005, when they purchased the intellectual property of Imperial Schrade Corporation.

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KnifeMakerPermalink Reply by Andy Larrison on January 21, 2017 at 17:56

I received this info from another guy as well. After looking at the imperial tang dates I'm pretty sure this is the stamp on this knife and it was used from 1956-1988.

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