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Elephant Toenail Collector Club

Welcome to the Elephant Toenail Collector Club (ETCC).

Come on in. Membership is open and free. Here at the ETCC we all share our appreciation for this handful of a knife.
Purpose
The ETCC purpose is to celebrate this wonderful old knife pattern. Toenails collectors range from folks that are crazy about the old ones, like me, up to collectors of modern day productions.

Very Brief Toenail History
Toenails were first made around the turn of the twentieth century as hard-core working knives. Evidently the pattern was a popular knife because dozens of firms began production shortly after that. Interestingly, the knife took on different names as each maker attempted to differentiate their toenails from the others made during that era. Some of the nicknames includes, Vest Pocket Axe, Rope Knife, The Jumbo and many others. Today, they are primarily known as toenails, and elephant toes, elephant toenails and, probably the most popular- Sunfish knives.

In my research and interviews of the Old Timers of our era, all agree ET's are a highly popular pattern. While their reasons differ, each agrees their unique design has immediate appeal.

Collecting Toenails-
The approaches used by toenail collectors range widely also. Some tend to collect based on the era the knife was made in, for example those who are primarily into the timeframe of the Granddaddies of cutlery history productions (Platts, WR Case, Case Brothers, Napanoch, New York Knife Co., Cattaraugus, etc); others limit their collection to a single brand, others still, go after toenails made around a specific geo location of the cutlery company, and then others like particular handle materials. There are even others, but you get the idea.

If you aren't into the history of the knife, that's cool too, cause they are still being made today by many firms, and even custom makers too.

Tags: Elephant, Knives, Toenail

8 members like this

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tobias Gibson on August 20, 2017 at 16:11

Just recently picked up a few elephant toenails and Sunfish Here is one by United. Its a Sunfish Whittler on an sleeveboard frame, Can't tell if it is stag or stag-bone. What i can say it is it appears to be a few years old. It was made in Japan and the quality is excellent. Its a little over 4.5 inches closed!

Permalink Reply by Jan Carter on August 20, 2017 at 20:52

Looks like bone stag but I love the coloring and blade etch!

Permalink Reply by Roger Russell on August 21, 2017 at 22:34

Here are a couple more H. Boker & Co's Improved Cutlery toenails that I picked up along the way.

Permalink Reply by Ugly Old Guy on August 21, 2017 at 22:44

I love the toenail/sunfish pattern.
I only have three though. Two Rough Rider large Sunfish "Outdoorsman" series with "Smooth Tobacco Bone" covers. One is more of a honey color, the other an Appolusa color, not a solid brown or tan.
The third is a "Zombie Nick" Toenail.
Seems more like a sleeveboard to me, though.
Either makes for a good EDC though.

Permalink Reply by Tobias Gibson on August 22, 2017 at 7:45

At one time I was of the impression that Elephant Toenail referred to the sleaveboatd version of these knives and the Sunfish was the Equal End version. It would seem that the names came about from different makers and are interchangeable. Another early name for the pattern was Jumbo; most likely a play on the Ringling Brother Elephant of the same name.

For my sanity, I try to think of the Elephant Toenail as the sleeveboard but when the maker lasers a Sunfish on the blade it becomes difficult. I've also seen Elephants etched into equal end knives with the maker calling the knife a Sunfish!

At the end of day I suggest not getting to hung up on the name. Go with what the maker calls it or whatever makes you happy. Two interchangeable names for knives made on three handles (equal end, sleeve board, and swell center. Want even more fun? The swell centers can be equal end or sleevbaord!)

Permalink Reply by Ugly Old Guy on August 22, 2017 at 13:11

I know. But isn't "Swell Center" another name for "Coke Bottle"? :)

I still think the name "Toenail" is kinda gross though.

Permalink Reply by Tobias Gibson on August 22, 2017 at 19:59

I think a swell cente is when the handle wider in the middle comparatively to the two nods. In other words instead of the two straight lines formed between the bolsters the handle forms a gentle archs so that on an equal end knife the cemetery is wider. On a sleeve board the handle is more oblong or oval. Think of it this way. When you set a swell center on its side it will rock back and forth.

Permalink Reply by Serge S. on Monday

Wow, what a cool theme! I only have two so far. An old Camillus that I can't quite determine the age of and a new Marbles. In the last year I've been making knives with a friend of mine. I'm going to try making a Sunfish soon

I can't quite determine what the stamp on the small blade is. The large one has a Sword mark. I have a feeling that the large blade was added later

Marbles was given to me by a friend on December 24, 2024 for my birthday

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Permalink Reply by Kevin D yesterday

What is in a name?

One thing first to set things straight. I know NOTHING about elephant toe knives. So these thoughts and ideas are from someone that has NO experience with the knife genre but honestly would like to learn more, and understand where/how an old design got its name.

I get the reference to the elephant toe, or toenail. Looking at the width and shape of the bolsters, you can see it. Just picture where the bolsters meet the handle scales as the ground, and the resemblance is unmistakable. Now the "sunfish"... Where does that come from? From my point of view I have a very difficult time seeing any resemblance to the Lepomis branch of what is known as 'bream'. So many species make up that family... Spotted Sunfish, Pumpkinseed, Redear, Bluegill, Green Sunfish, Longear, Red-Breasted, Warmouth, Orange-Spotted Sunfish, and Dollar Sunfish... All fresh water fish, and honestly fairly small.

Is there a chance that this could be referring to an Ocean Sunfish? Much less confusion on species...

From my understanding, ETs are decent sized knives. The ocean sunfish is a pretty good-sized fish. And the dorsal and pectoral fins are very similar sized (for those knives that has similar sized blades).

The bolsters of ETs can resemble elephant toes, where as to my uneducated perception, the blades can resemble the fins of a (ocean) sunfish.

Okay. All may commence with the bashing and ridiculing my admittedly uneducated perceptions. LOL.

Permalink Reply by Serge S. 3 hours ago

No the bashing and ridiculing, lol, I also couldn't understand about names when I found out about the existence of this pattern (when a friend sent me a knife as a gift). Perhaps these are really all names to highlight it and make it memorable. It's just that "the Big Jack" doesn't attract big attention, but this is just my guess

I am very interested in the behavior of the blades of all these knives, especially the oldest ones. And do any of the companies that produced them have any preferences in this behavior? I noticed that they very rarely have a half-stop, but there is something like a blurry half-stop, I called it that because I don't know what it is called correctly, I would be very grateful if someone corrected me

https://youtu.be/cCgs_r_9ESI

I made a short video and made a drawing. If the delta is large, then the blade behaves closer to knives with a half-stop, first knife in video, and Camillus tends to behave like a half-stop, but there is no pure half-stop here. If the delta is small, then the blade is more like a knife with a almos round radius of the shank like Buck 301, if the delta is about 30-40%, then it is similar to how Marbles behaves, it has a sort of blurry halfstop, but is more sluggish compared to the Camillus. Plus the transitions from the rotation angles themselves (small R** on photo) greatly affect the behavior. I have not yet fully understood how. But the same Marbles if opening it towards this blurred half-stop and folding it back is a little more difficult than opening from the half-stop to a fully open state and back to halfstop. I would really like to know how the early Case and Platts behave if any of the collectors share information :)

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