Ethnographic folding knives

[chregu]

France
Austria Taschenfeitel
Spain Navaja
Corsica Vendeta
Italy?
France?
In the boxes are all my penknife
Witrinesind in all good pocket knife, the bottom row are all Swiss Army Knives

[ericlaude]

I present my last conquest.
An Afghan folding knife.

[laEspadaAncha]

I'll throw my scribe knife into the ring... Same handle form as the one from OA (but different material) and same hollow-grind to the blade.

This one was picked up on the Malabar coast... The vendor had several (the ivory-handled example can cost a few bucks), and described them exactly (as did my wife) as they have been described elsewhere in this thread, as having been used for inscribing on leaves.

[Andrew]

Jens has posted a very similar knife here, also with reliable Indian provenance:

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=12274

Accordingly, in light of Jens' example, as well as laEspadaAncha's example above, I am happy to retreat from my arrogant comment that my knife was "clearly SEA". I should know better.



If anyone knows who can translate the writing on the ivory handle of my knife, I'd be grateful.

[VANDOO]

A FEW OF MY FAVORITES FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT, I JUST HAVE THE PICTURES NOT THE KNIVES
THE FIRST THREE PICTURES I AM NOT SURE OF THE NEXT THREE ARE ALL GREEK KNIVES WITH CARVED HANDLES, THE LAST TWO ARE FROM SICILY AND ARE CALLED SALITANO AFTER A SEA FISH. ENJOY

[ericlaude]

Hello everybody,
Now i show you a "bizare" ethnic folding knife, if someone can tell me its origine , I will die more intelligent.
Thanks in advance

[Atlantia]

Looks like a variation on those Indian made 'Nazi' brass folders to me.

[olaicollector]

In regards to Andrew's post (http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showpo...4&postcount=48), the engraving on the handle is as follows:

ஆரு. ப.அ

which are just initials, presumably indicating the owner. Translated into English, it just says Aru. Pa. A

Cheers,

Ram

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Salaams All ~ Nice thread ... Heres 4; The white bone handle is razor like and sharp and possibly a circumcision item, Bedu and accompanied by a tooled leather case. The hook shape looks vaguelly for use on a ship and the brass one is Pakistani. The star and moon hilt is Solingen. Thats it !

Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

[trenchwarfare]

Originally Posted by ThePepperSkull

I am surprised that nobody mentioned the Higonokami

Did somebody mention Higonokami...

My Japanese folder collection.

[Edster]

Here's a nice lock blade folder from Zanjan, Iran circa 1966. That town is long famous as a knife making center.

[Billman]

Ibrahiim - your curved knife is a form of folding billhook - used mainly for pruning of fruit trees/bushes and grape vines. Known as a serpette in France, and a roncoletta in Italy (diminutive forms of serpe and roncola respectively) - it is found all over southern Europe and the Mediterranean area. I would guess yours in probably Italian in origin, possibly from the Maniago region.
see: http://www.couteaux-jfl.com/serpettes.htm Sailors' knives tend to have a square blade, see: http://www.linder.de/en/artikel/Kniv...Sailor’s_knife

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by Billman

Ibrahiim - your curved knife is a form of folding billhook - used mainly for pruning of fruit trees/bushes and grape vines. Known as a serpette in France, and a roncoletta in Italy (diminutive forms of serpe and roncola respectively) - it is found all over southern Europe and the Mediterranean area. I would guess yours in probably Italian in origin, possibly from the Maniago region.
see: http://www.couteaux-jfl.com/serpettes.htm Sailors' knives tend to have a square blade, see: http://www.linder.de/en/artikel/Kniv...Sailor’s_knife

Salaams Billman ~ Thank you for that ... How interesting... can't think how it arrived here?... I shall give it a go on my Pomegranates !

Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi

[Billman]

Prior to the invention of the secateurs, c 1830 and their gradual introduction into viniculture and later horticulture in the late 19th/early 20th century, all pruning of vines, fruit trees, fruit bushes, roses etc was carried out with a small billhook. Many were of a fixed blade model, but equally many were made with folding blades.

They would have originally been made locally by cutlers and edge tool makers, but post the Industrial Revolution in Europe, imports from English, German, French, Italian and Spanish makers would have been serious competition, as mass production methods brought down the cost. The same is true of many other tools and also weapons - later the USA and other countries also made and exported them. Some English, German and US makers established manufacturing plants in other countries - today some of them still survive as independent manufacturers...

Now much manufacturing by UK firms is out-sourced to India, China & Taiwan. The edge tool industries of Sheffield and the Midlands has all but disappeared, and we are importing tools from many other countries.

How the mighty are fallen.... (Samuel 2:1)

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by Billman

Prior to the invention of the secateurs, c 1830 and their gradual introduction into viniculture and later horticulture in the late 19th/early 20th century, all pruning of vines, fruit trees, fruit bushes, roses etc was carried out with a small billhook. Many were of a fixed blade model, but equally many were made with folding blades.

They would have originally been made locally by cutlers and edge tool makers, but post the Industrial Revolution in Europe, imports from English, German, French, Italian and Spanish makers would have been serious competition, as mass production methods brought down the cost. The same is true of many other tools and also weapons - later the USA and other countries also made and exported them. Some English, German and US makers established manufacturing plants in other countries - today some of them still survive as independent manufacturers...

Now much manufacturing by UK firms is out-sourced to India, China & Taiwan. The edge tool industries of Sheffield and the Midlands has all but disappeered, and we are importing tools from many other countries.

How the mighty are fallen.... (Samuel 2:1)

Salaama Billman~ In Oman farm tools were made by a strange wandering group of Zutoot (Gypsies) now fully incorporated into the Omani system since 1970, thus, much of that work has ceased. It is a great pity the great blade makers of Sheffield are no longer in business as they still have a fine reputation here for working knives.

Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

[Billman]

There are a few knife makers still working in Sheffield, so the tradition continues - even at least one Little Meister still hand making knives. Sadly British draconian knife laws have reduced sales in the UK - as a boy I (and almost every boy in my class at school) carried a penknife - today very few adults carry a knife (unlike in France and Italy) - those that do have to justify their reason if stopped by the police. The idea is to reduce knife crime - sadly those who carry knives for illegal purposes do not take heed of the law....

[kronckew]

Originally Posted by Billman

There are a few knife makers still working in Sheffield, so the tradition continues - even at least one Little Meister still hand making knives. Sadly British draconian knife laws have reduced sales in the UK - as a boy I (and almost every boy in my class at school) carried a penknife - today very few adults carry a knife (unlike in France and Italy) - those that do have to justify their reason if stopped by the police. The idea is to reduce knife crime - sadly those who carry knives for illegal purposes do not take heed of the law....

you beat me to it. i do carry a sub-three inch non locking folder which is UK legal to carry w/o a reason. even tho it is legal, i have to be careful where and why i use it. if i 'scare' someone a cop could construe that as an offensive act and i'd be done for carrying an offensive weapon, even tho the knife itself is 'legal'.

i visited sheffield a few years ago, couldn't find any decent knives. only one store actually sold non cutlery style knives, most were imports and of poor quality. found one traditional maker who worked at a forge in the knife making museum. his order book was backed up for years and he was rather expensive. there was another one there as well, but he was closed at the time. many old factories were shut down & i would bet have since been razed.

john nowill still has a factory making knives, some of low quality and price, but serviceable. his stag handled seaman's knife is decent and inexpensive. his high end bowies ain't too bad. 'sheffield knives' makes some, tho i've never desired any of theirs. too many are 'stainless', i prefer high carbon steel or non-stainless tool steel alloys.

i took a trip to see wilkinson sword's HQ & sword factory a while back. unbeknown to me, they had shut up shop the week before & were closed forever. they still had a specimen of their limited edition gladius in the window when i peered in. now the 'wilkinson sword' name is only on razor blades.

sad.

i wonder who makes the miltary's dress swords. probably made in china.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by kronckew

you beat me to it. i do carry a sub-three inch non locking folder which is UK legal to carry w/o a reason. even tho it is legal, i have to be careful where and why i use it. if i 'scare' someone a cop could construe that as an offensive act and i'd be done for carrying an offensive weapon, even tho the knife itself is 'legal'.

i visited sheffield a few years ago, couldn't find any decent knives. only one store actually sold non cutlery style knives, most were imports and of poor quality. found one traditional maker who worked at a forge in the knife making museum. his order book was backed up for years and he was rather expensive. there was another one there as well, but he was closed at the time. many old factories were shut down & i would bet have since been razed.

john nowill still has a factory making knives, some of low quality and price, but serviceable. his stag handled seaman's knife is decent and inexpensive. his high end bowies ain't too bad. 'sheffield knives' makes some, tho i've never desired any of theirs. too many are 'stainless', i prefer high carbon steel or non-stainless tool steel alloys.

i took a trip to see wilkinson sword's HQ & sword factory a while back. unbeknown to me, they had shut up shop the week before & were closed forever. they still had a specimen of their limited edition gladius in the window when i peered in. now the 'wilkinson sword' name is only on razor blades.

sad.

i wonder who makes the miltary's dress swords. probably made in china.

Salaams kronckew... Disposal of the sword business;

The Acton sword factory closed, and sword production ceased on 15 September 2005. Most of the Wilkinson Sword machinery, tools and equipment was purchased by the oldest producing sword factory in the world, WKC (Weyersberg, Kirschbaum & Cie) of Solingen, Germany. Amongst these items were most of the current British MOD Pattern Sword and Scabbard tools as well as the original blade roll forge of Wilkinson. These are currently used to produce ceremonial swords and scabbards for military and police forces worldwide.

However !!!!

Robert Pooley purchased sword drawings and forging machinery from Wilkinson Sword and sent them to India. He then set up his own company Pooley Sword which finishes and engraves swords forged in India.

Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

[kronckew]

shukran, ibrahim.

i see pooley has a UK website. no prices listed - i generally work on the principle that if they do not list a price, i cannot afford it.

...maybe i amend that if i'm haggling in a souk

edited: wkc also has a site - with prices. still can't afford them

especially as they all seem to be stainless. i hate stainless swords.

stems from a mis-spent youth. as a cadet 1st classman, i was a asst. platoon leader for our cadet regiment (i went to a military university). i carried an issue stainless naval pattern officers sword. they fitted us individually, the length of the sword was chosen so that you did not hit the ground with the point when flourishing it in parades.

i found out why.

one of the other platoon leaders was running late one weekend for the muster before our weekly pass in review parade for the admiral and hordes of the public, including family & girlfriends, and he borrowed a sword from one of the other cadets who was ill and not attending, but was closer to the parade ground (i think he'd left his somewhere off the campus & couldn't immediately find it). the sick loaner was a good 6 in. taller than the borrower.

anyhow during the parade, as we passed the admiral & did a sword salute, his blade tip, longer than he was used to, hit the ground.

we heard a 'tink' (so did the admiral) and half the blade hit the ground in front of him. he completed the parade with a short sword, red with embarrassment and the laughter of many.

edited again:

i did order a USCG 'sword' letter opener from WKC tonight (my family has/had my full sized sword i bought when i was commissioned back in the USA) i'll hang it on a hook under my commission for remembrance.

[A. G. Maisey]

This thread looks as if it has taken a turn to the left and is moving along a slightly different road.
I mostly limit my comments in this Forum to keris and related matters, but I also have an interest in modern knives, both fixed blade and folders. In another lifetime I was a member of the Australian Knife Makers guild, and although I did not make very many complete knives, I did make quite a lot of damascus blades that I sold to other makers.

I've accumulated folders since I was very young, and like Billman I invariably carried a folder with me everywhere, including school. In primary school (sub-12 years od age) it was Richards Lamp Post, in high school it was an IXL three blade stock knife. Still carry a pocket knife everywhere. It goes on with my trousers. I use several folders, depending on what the day holds. In a suit it’s a mini Swiss Army, around the yard its one of several Boker three blade stockman's knives. My traveling companion for around 40 years has been a big, multi-blade Swiss Army.

I don't think of myself as a pocket knife collector, but I have managed to accumulate a couple of hundred folders over the years.

Anyway, on the subject of modern manufacture.

Yes, there's not much left of Sheffield, and some other traditional centres have pretty much disappeared, but to a large extent the gap has been filled by custom makers, many of whom are very reasonable in what they charge for their work.

In Sheffield Trevor Ablett and Reg Cooper are two gentlemen who still hand-make knives --- or at least they were still doing so last time I checked, but both would now be around 70 or so I guess, so they may have decided to take a break.

In the town of Scarperia near Florence in Italy there are still at least three knife factories in production, as well as a few individual makers. The oldest of the factories is the Berti concern, I think it was established in 1895. At Berti a single craftsman still makes the knife from start to finish and signs it with his initials. These are individual bench-made knives produced under the banner of a merchant.

The prices charged for the Scarperia knives, and for the work of Ablett and Cooper are extremely reasonable, considering what you are paying for. Of course, they cannot compete on price with the $25.50 that you will pay for something out of Shanghai.

Kronckew, I understand your aversion to stainless steel. Don't like it much myself, but realistically, good quality stainless, properly heat treated will perform at least as well as high carbon steel of the same quality. Both will fail if they are not properly heat treated. The reason that sword broke was not the fault of the material, it was the fault of the manufacturer because he failed to either use good quality material, or more likely, failed to correctly heat treat that material. It was a quality control issue, not a material issue.

I suppose we need to get used to the idea that most of everything we now use is made in either China or India, but who can we blame for this? Are any of us prepared to pay our own countrymen a living wage to work for us, or would we prefer to buy the product of other countries where wages and living standards are only a fraction of those which apply in developed countries?

It is the obligation under law for any corporation to maximise profit for its shareholders. This is done by paying the lowest wage possible, which results in the export of jobs --- think "call centres in Manilla", the export of manufacturing, or the creation of an underclass in our own societies.

History tells us that nothing really changes.

[Congoblades]

A large ringlock folding knive from Belgium, made in Brussels about 1900.
Size is 52 cm, a monster ...

[kronckew]

i like that big bad boy! is the pattern 'damascus' or etching?

i have a very similar tho newer one. it looks smaller than yours tho. 'only' a 6 in. (15.25 cm.) blade, 6 ratchet notches on the lever operated lock.

[Congoblades]

Originally Posted by kronckew

i like that big bad boy! is the pattern 'damascus' or etching?

Looks like etching?

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Salaams All~ I have a nice little project to bring on a small Jacknife . The other has a minute oriental stamp? ... The Knife itself came from a trader on the Persian coast.
Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

[A. G. Maisey]

EDIT

My apologies for the repetition.

I did not realise I'd put this up previously.

I request the moderators to remove this post with images.

Thank you.


My scribe's knife.

I rather like the idea that it is not used for the manufacture of carpets:- pens and swords are natural running mates.

[Billman]

Content deleted as double posted - see below...

[Billman]

Salaam Ibrahiim

Your rusty folder looks like a UK military style jackknife - you may find the makers name, year and MOD (WD) broad arrow (/l\) on the shoulder of the main blade. The can opener is typical of British Army knives - maybe a left over from wartime. Handles were often a black fibre board, sometimes jigged to look like bone or antler, but usually with an impressed diamond pattern - occasionally you do find real bone or antler handles ones, but these would have been bought privately, not issued..

They were also issued to British Commonwealth troops, so you may find Australian and Canadian ones - most UK ones would have been made in Sheffield, possibly also in Birmingham...

Several types of opener were fitted - later ones have a can opener incorporated. As a boy I thought the spike was for getting stones out of horses' hooves - I much later learned it is very useful when splicing ropes...

Regards

Bob

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by Billman

Salaam Ibrahiim

Your rusty folder looks like a UK military style jackknife - you may find the makers name, year and MOD (WD) broad arrow (/l\) on the shoulder of the main blade. The can opener is typical of British Army knives - maybe a left over from wartime. Handles were often a black fibre board, sometimes jigged to look like bone or antler, but usually with an impressed diamond pattern - occasionally you do find real bone or antler handles ones, but these would have been bought privately, not issued..

They were also issued to British Commonwealth troops, so you may find Australian and Canadian ones - most UK ones would have been made in Sheffield, possibly also in Birmingham...

Several types of opener were fitted - later ones have a can opener incorporated. As a boy I thought the spike was for getting stones out of horses' hooves - I much later learned it is very useful when splicing ropes...

Regards

Bob

Salaams Billman ~ Thank you for an excellent post.
Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

[DaveA]

I saw this new higonokami (肥後守) folder (see picture) from Japan and just had to have it, even without knowing the backstory, which is quite fascinating (see Higonokami Story )

I have a few Languioles from France, a Tre Pianelle by F. Consiglio, several Navaja Estilletes and other folders, a few of which are shown in the pictures. I was happy to discover this thread today while searching the forum for higonokami. There is a fine line between a high quality hand-made folder and an ethnographic knife. I am glad other members share my enthusiasm for a fine folding knife!

Best,

Dave A.

P.S. The folding lohar doesn't count as a "pocket knife" !

[kronckew]

i've got one very much like that. fairly cheap, UK legal EDC, nice razor sharp, simple and effective. i've heard they are carried by just about everyone in japan, the equivalent of a boy scout folder of yesteryears.