SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to the Good Old Blades. I am your host, Aaron LeVere. And join me as we talk to other knife makers and customers about anything and everything that is. Thank you for listening into the Good Old Blades podcast. I am your host, Aaron LeVere, and I am joined by esteemed guest Neil Ponchard. Neil is one of the three hosts of the Catch Bit Show, talking primarily about pocket knives and pocket knife history. And I thought it would be a good idea to have Neil on the show today to talk a little bit more about knives, specifically things that I'm interested in, and just pick his brain about knives and knife history. Thanks for joining us, Neil.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Hey, Aaron.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

It's great to be with you and on your show. This is a real treat. Yeah, absolutely. I listen to y'all all the time. So if you if anybody's interested, uh uh search for the Catch Bit show. Uh you can find them on most uh major podcast softwares out there. I listen to them all the time and religiously. So every time they have a new episode, I'm one of the first to listen to it. So um, Neil, for the sake of my show, um, I would like to get a brief introduction uh from you. Just uh tell us a little bit about your involvement in knives, uh, some of your publication work and whatnot, whatever you're comfortable with sharing.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Sure. Um I guess to start with, I have a story like so many guys my age in their 50s, 60s, 70s. You know, when I was a kid, everybody carried a pocket knife. My dad carried one. Um, it was just you didn't leave the house without having uh some kind of a pocket knife in your pocket. And like a lot of guys, um the having a switchblade. I mean, when you were a kid, you were, you know, in your teenage years and you see movies about switchblades, and you see them in comic books, and it's like the ultimate goal is to get this switchblade. So when I was uh about 14 years old, my parents took a trip to uh Mexico, family vacation, and my dad was uh was uh kind enough to let me get a couple of of these cheap plastic switchblades, but it was still just amazing. So, from handling pocket knives since I was a kid, my dad having pocket knives, learning how to sharpen knives on an old stone, um it just something that I just grew up with. And it kind of blossomed for me into collecting. I joined a uh local uh knife club, the North Star Blade Collectors in Minneapolis. Um, oh, I think in about 1981. Um, and and that really helped to propel me because there were so many uh fellows who were older than I was. I mean, obviously they were 10 years, 15, 20 years older, and they were great mentors, you know, they'd show me knives, American knives, English knives, German knives. And and you know, as you know, Aaron, I I think a lot of us get our our inspiration from from older collectors, people that have been there before us, people that have shown us things, and you go, holy cow, is that cool? So I was really just a human sponge for the first, you know, 10 years after joining the club, just listening to these guys talk, looking at knives, learning how to how to tell one knife from another, learning knife patterns, learning what something original was. Um, and it was just it for me, it was just great fun. And it just and it was like a like that proverbial snowball down a mountain, you know. It just as the as the ball's rolling down, it's picking up steam. I'm gathering more snow. And for me, it's just building information, building more of a passion, building more of a collection. Um so just a a great time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

And so what was the uh the the shift to authorship and and your your your uh published work? Like uh at what point in time did that come into play?

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Um being a collector, I think, for me involves not just collecting, but also looking for information, um, reading information, finding books, and and sometimes you go to find a book and you can't find a book on something. I I actually uh the first book I wrote was actually on Daisy baby guns. I was a baby gun, air gun collector at the same time, and I I tried to find some information on Daisy and I couldn't find much. And I thought, well, then maybe I'll just write a book on something. And uh it was it was pretty uh um pretty novice of me to think that because I certainly wasn't a writer, but I I had the passion, I had an interest. And this was just this was in 2002, it was just about the time the internet was starting, but all the information I had was still old school. It was old catalogs and old brochures and and uh any paperwork I could find. So I I put this book together. I was really fortunate that I had two really good friends, um, a good photographer, Ben Sultzman, and a good layout person, John Curry. These are old friends of mine, and and they helped make this book um really a beautiful book. We won an award, a design award for it. Um it went on to sell a lot of copies. And then within the next year, two knife friends of mine had contacted me, uh Tim Zinzer and Dan Fuller, and said, Hey, would you help us write a book on switchblades? Um, and I said, sure. What do you want to do? And they said, Well, let's all get together and and hash this out. So I met these guys at at one of their homes. Uh that we all lived in different states, um, and we sat down and they said, we want to write a general book on switchblades. And I listened to them and I thought, that sounds pretty monumentous. That's like saying, let's write a book on the history of cars. So the more we talked and the more beers we drank, I said, you know, guys, I think we should really boil this down to one topic and yeah, or one subject. And both of these guys were really avid Italian switchblade collectors. Um, most guys that collect Italian knives are well aware of a long history um in Italy. And a lot of those knives are just so iconic. When you look at an Italian switchblade, you know, most guys recognize that as kind of the quintessential switchblade. You know, Americans and Germans all made great switchblades, but the Italians just made a beautiful knife. So um I said, how about if we write a book just on Italian knives? Um, and so we did. It was called Switchblades of Italy. Um, we wrote that, I think, in 2003, if I remember right. Uh, Tim Zinzer has since passed on. Um, my other friend Dan Fuller um was an English professor at Kent State, um, a phenomenal writer. He did most of the writing. So Tim and I would feed him information. And Dan, uh just a phenomenally great writer. He specialized in in Shakespeare, so you can imagine that his writing was just top-notch. Yeah. Um, and we took a lot of pictures. We had again, my friend Ben, who did the Daisy book, actually shot all the photos. So those guys came up to uh my town. We met with Ben, spent a couple of days just shooting pictures, and uh put the book together. It was published by a company called Turner Publishing, and they're still selling books. I mean, 20 years later, I'm still getting small royalty checks, and they continue to sell that book. I I really don't know how many copies were sold, but um many, many, many thousands of copies. Um, but that was fun.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Yeah. What uh I'm interested uh in the idea of compilation for books previous to the internet because you're talking about uh stitching together history through brochures and through maybe excerpts and things like that. Like how how has it changed in your writing style from previous to having uh all of that the like the volumes of of internet uh data available to you?

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Uh that's really an interesting question. I I think that um the internet is a phenomenally great source, but uh interestingly, that the internet is is only good if someone has put information on it. So if you go to search for catalogs, for example, for old Sheffield nice or old German nice, even for old American nice, for the most part, you won't find it because nobody has cataloged that information into the internet. Um so I kind of knew that early on. So I started collecting catalogs, you know, searching them out on on eBay, on the internet, um, and any kind of paperwork, any kind of brochure. So I'm kind of old school, and I still love paper. You know, the internet's neat, but I love I love holding catalogs, I love magazines, and and because I I built up quite a collection, I have a lot of information that you will not find on the internet, no matter where you search or where you look, it just does not exist. Um and that really helped me with that with the Daisy book, which was an early attempt, and then with the other books, every book after that is like I I tried to build more information. What the internet's good for is looking up um it's looking up uh names, it's looking up people, it's looking up um histories of um lineage of families. So that helps you writing any kind of a book means you need a lot of information. You need the you need the material, in this case, the knives, you need a certain amount of of catalog information, you need um oh, other types of paper, other anything that involves the company, and then and then a history of the people themselves and the places themselves. So um it's it's fun for me, it's always been fun to to interweave all that together.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

It's interesting to me as we're talking about uh catalogs and stitching together history and whatnot, because um you were just at the Oregon knife show and and uh I previously I I think I heard about it first from you guys on the uh on the catchbit show. And uh I don't know that in the knife show circuit, uh obviously there are people who bring collectors items uh to a blade show and things like that, but it doesn't seem to have the same focus on collecting and has the same uh group of people as the Oregon Knife Show. And I'm really just interested to know a little bit more about um you know what your experiences were there and a little bit more about the show because I'm hoping that if everything works out well, uh maybe I can attend next year.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

So I I absolutely love the Eugene show. I've been going there for probably over 25 years. It was canceled the last three years because of COVID, sadly. Um I like the Eugene show. It's a it's a pretty good sized show. There's 360 tables um where a lot of small shows are, maybe 150 to 250. So it's a bit pretty good sized show right off the bat. But mostly I like Eugene because it really focuses on older knives. I mean, there's a uh you know a huge amount of older American, um, Sheffield, English, uh, German knives there. Um for a collector, it's it's just absolute paradise. I've been to other shows like The Mystic Show on Connecticut, the Badger Show in in Florida. I was just recently at the Janesville show in Wisconsin, which was good. Um, but none of those shows have the the quantity of of old knives that Eugene's show does. Um I did pick up a few catalogs there. I picked up a few knives there. Um there's some there's some really great, you know, um dealers that show up at that show too. Um Bill Clausen, uh Mark Zelesky of Knife Magazine was there. Bernard Levine. I mean, Bernard Levine is is uh you know one of the one of the great uh authors, one of the great researchers in this knife collecting field. Um, I had a chance to talk to Bernard for a while. Um some other dealers that were there were Art Green, uh Tommy Clark, Bob Bercher, all those guys. You have tables and all those guys go to quite a few shows, and they always bring a great selection of uh old knives, uh really classic, good patterns, good stuff. So it's for me uh that's that really makes the show. Um the show is pretty well attended. Um I don't know how many visitors are there. We were there Friday and Saturday. I had to leave Sunday morning, but um it always seems to have a really good attendance. The problem it has is it's you know, Eugene, Oregon obviously is way up in the you know northwest corner, so there's not many East Coast guys that go, and it's even tough for a lot of you know mid-country people to attend. So it brings in a lot of guys from California, from basically from the West Coast, but a really good show.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

Um my understanding, I know that uh Ridian was up there um at the show, but are there like what what is the spread on custom knife makers uh up there?

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Is it very few or uh custom knife makers are it is really a much smaller group as would be compared to the Atlanta Blade Show, which you know brings out you know a huge amount of of custom collectors. I honestly don't know how many were there. Um I I and when you when you talk about custom makers, you there's always a bigger ratio of uh fixed blade makers to folding blade makers. Um you're right, Ridian was there, and Riddian's a wonderful guy, so nice, so humble, so talented. He actually took home four awards best of show, best miniature, um, best folding knife, and best new maker. So he was just he was just I he I think he grew about four feet because he was so far off the ground. Yeah, and uh, and I was so happy for him to be a new guy. First time he's ever ever displayed anything, and the first time he's ever entered a competition and just basically cleaned house. Um his dad was also there, who was a really nice guy, talked to his dad for a while. Nothing, he has no he has just a mild interest in knives. He was there really just to support his son, but um, but it was fun to see a father and son both there.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I uh it is no wonder to me that he uh uh took home the gold uh in those categories, but he's a super nice guy, and all of his work is really just top-notch. Um, but I I think uh for our listeners, the one thing that I'm I'm really interested in uh in the knife industry and especially pocket knife industries is uh the uh revitalization of traditional uh patterns in custom knife making, right? Because we see that we we see that some patterns in semi-production with like GEC and whatnot are are you like they're brought back. Um but in custom knife making, there's a lot of uh replication of Bose patterns and um of you know previous factory knives and things like that. But I would say that uh across the large breadth of pocket knives in history, there's a very, very small subset that are actually being produced in the traditional vein anymore as when it comes to patterns. Would you agree?

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Um I would agree, but I think it's growing immensely. Um when I see guys like Riddy and and and my own co-hosts, uh Mike Moran and Jason Ritchie. I mean, they're making classic old patterns um and to a level that I've never seen before, as far as the quality and the and the and the you know way they make the knives. I I'm just blowing away. I mean, I've been I've been collecting knives for 50 years. I I kind of I kind of focus on on Sheffield, some old American and German. So I really I'd like to think I have a good eye for knowing what quality is, knowing what patterns are. So for me it's it's really exciting to see this trend um not just with GEC, but with with makers like these guys I just mentioned, to see them remaking um old patterns. So you you're exactly right, but I it it seems that it's bigger than maybe maybe we both realize.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Yeah, and I I would say it's the interest is growing. I think correct. I definitely think that what how to put this what we're seeing is that there's a larger knowledge set, I think. It's like if if I figure out some technique, or uh Mike or Jason or uh Tom Ploppert or somebody or Tim Robertson, somebody figures out some technique on something to produce an an old style of knife, not just the pattern, but like some of the techniques and things that are used that we're more uh uh willing to share it and inspire other people. And I've gotten a ton of inspiration for building uh traditional knives from uh Mike, Jason, Tim, a bunch of other uh uh like Rydian. Like I see these knives and I'm like, man, like those those are pretty cool. And it makes it makes me want to get into it more and continue discovering. So I guess that's part of part of this these types of conversations, or uh it's uh uh stitching together my own interests and kind of giving some color to uh pocket knife history and some of the gaps that I see there. So I'm kind of on that no. Um I self-admittedly, I constantly am saying, like, I don't know what I don't know until I know it. And it's very uh common in my life with knives uh to uh to assume things uh until data becomes available. And uh one thing is uh interesting to me is this uh like the the knife mechanism um and how long it's been around, like uh the you know, spring knives or lockbacks or uh inner frames or are uh like liner locks and things like that. Can you give give me a basic idea on when uh spring knives became uh I guess more prevalent in in knife making history? And uh I guess maybe similarly, uh like uh lockbacks and friction folders and things like that. Like, can you just give a basic history on pocket knives and kind of when those knife mechanisms were introduced? Sure.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

So uh folding knives date back before Roman times, um but they certainly weren't real popular, they were probably comp you know hard to make, complex to make. So it really wasn't until the 1600s that folding knives kind of make uh kind of make a bigger splash. Um I think most of the knives from the 1600s and early 1700s were really uh friction folders, so they didn't have a spring. Um, there were lots of of knives that were imported um into the Americas, um into Canada, um in the in again in the 1600 and 1700s. Um spring back knives with that with a spring in them really started to become popular probably in the mid-1700s. It's always tough to pin down um time frames because there's so much overlap. And when you look at evolution, evolution is a slow change with everything, and and knives are no exception. Um you asked about a lockback. They had lockback knives in the 1700s. I have I have catalogs from both Germany and France that show lockback knives in the 1700s. They had multiple uh blades, camping type name uh blade, camping type knives uh with various blades again in the in the 1700s. You'd think, wow, that's a long time back. Um folding knives were kind of simple in appearance, you know, meaning they were kind of um oh, for the most part, kind of rectangle shapes, maybe some rounded shapes, but they didn't really they didn't really start gaining unique patterns until the early 1800s. Um, if anybody has heard or seen the book uh uh Joseph Smith's keybook, um Sheffield Knives from 1816, uh, that's such a great resource to kind of show the beginning evolution of knives that start to get fancy. You start seeing patterns like a Warren Cliff. Um, also, you have to remember that knives were so much more important throughout history than they are now, they're still important. Now, but not like they were, you know, a long time ago. You needed the knife to eat, you needed the knife to hunch your food, you needed a knife for for gardening. I mean, there were things that you had to have the knife for. There were some knives too that were kind of odd. I mean, uh a knife that was that was a folding knife was called a fleeme, and it was made for bleeding animals and even people. Well, they found out later that bleeding wasn't a good idea, it didn't do anything, it didn't help anything, but but they would actually bleed animals with a with a knife that had fleeme blades. It was a specific blade. And then of course, um, self-defense. You know, you you think about dirks, daggers and dirks. I mean, they were a really big deal from the from well going back to Roman times, certainly. But but if you think about modern times, modern, meaning the early 1800s, you see a lot of fancy folding dirks, um and and they were used as self-protection. You know, they had the highwaymen, the robbers back, you know, during the the 1800s and early 1900s. So uh a guy really kind of relied on his knife as kind of a backup form of protection. Um I touched on pruning knives, you know, even though pruning is is popular today, it was almost even more so back, you know, in the in the 17 and 1800s. So they had um uh countless numbers of styles and patterns and blades for for pruning, for grafting, for doing all different types of of trim work on on trees and bushes and plants and flowers. Um, so there was such a variety. I mean, there was the companies could put out, could literally put out a catalog with 2,000 different variations of knives in there. It's overwhelming to think even some of the American companies, uh New York Knife Company, I think at one time, they advertised over 2,000 knives in their catalog. Um it's also important to note that a lot of the American companies, a lot of the big American companies, were really founded by Sheffield makers. A lot of guys, a lot of guys came from England who were kind of disgruntled in their own um in their own place. They were they weren't paid well, working conditions were horrible. Um, so a lot of guys immigrated from England to America in the mid-1800s, and a lot of them either formed or helped to base big companies that we think of in America, like Empire, New York Knife, Northfield, Birkinshaw. Those were all you know huge American companies in the late 1800s to early 1900s, but they were really they were really supported by guys from England that brought their knowledge, their skill, their designs uh to American companies. And I just think that's a really neat thing to to to know about.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Sure. Um, it's you know, it's interesting to me. Um, can you confirm uh kind of like uh as as a kind of like a tangent to this uh conversation, but uh was there a like an echelon to get into certain types of pocket knives based on class or based on income level? Or was it was it uh was that divide uh different in the pocket knife industry?

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Um that's a good question, also. In if if we go back to England, and England, England was the premier country, and Sheffield was the premier city for pocket knives and and fixed blade knives from basically the beginning of the 1800s till the end of the 1800s. They dominated. Um uh France, Germany were all producing decent knives, but nowhere near the the the quality. And when I say quality, the a huge amount of quality. I mean there were a lot of really good French makers, but they weren't putting out the quantity of quality items like Sheffield was. Um and then you have your hierarchy of companies. Um, Joseph Rogers was was has always been considered the the top, the best of the best for Sheffield makers. Wollstenholm, George Wollstenholm, right behind them. And then there's just um hordes of other companies that that follow in behind that were still all produced fantastic knives. Um within those companies, you also had different grades of knives, uh, like Rogers and Wollstenholm would have really expensive um folders for gentlemen, um, you know, gold-filled, um you know, uh select materials, tortoiseshell, pearl, ivory, stag. And then they would have knives that would be a little lower, um, maybe standard pocket knives, um, other knives that were you know common usage items. Um and in America was really the same way. All the companies in America had had um had different grades of knives depending on how much you wanted to spend and and what purpose you wanted them for.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

Yeah, that totally makes sense. So um something that I've been interested in uh liner lock mechanisms, I um I'm aware of them really kind of have like I'm aware of them uh having a place in the 70s onwards, right? Because uh in the like the resurgence of uh custom knife making um and the knife makers guild and whatnot, it was one of the mechanisms that people chose. I'm not exactly sure why, but liner locks are are actually a much older mechanism than the 70s, correct? I mean, that goes back quite a bit further.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

Um, to be honest, I I haven't I haven't taken the time to research the liner lock. Like I said, the the back lock, um, which typically would have either a recessed or a raised bar in the back, you would push. Um, those that date back at least to the to the you know later 1700s. Um another lock that we see used on a lot of knives is called the pen blade release or tool blade release, meaning that you're gonna have a a knife that has two blades, a main blade, and then a smaller blade, usually a pen blade or sometimes a screwdriver. And when the knife, when the main blade is opened all the way up, it locks in place. And by pushing on the pen blade, it it pushes the backspring back to release, unlock, and release and fold the main blade back in place again. The pen blade release dates back to at least the 1850s. It was a company called Lingard who had a patent on that pen blade release mechanism um in the, like I said, in the 1850s. I don't remember the exact date. I want to say right around 1851, right around the same time the the um the um Crystal Palace exhibition was. Um the liner lock, um I'm I'm fairly certain that dates to at least the early 1900s. Um but I'd I'd have to do a little research. And it's funny because that's been on my mind before I thought about when was the the liner lock first around. Um, and I I I I guess I shouldn't say more without without checking into it, but I believe it was the early 1900s.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Yeah, because I've seen some slip uh spring knives or slip joints, right, with uh with a liner, uh like a brass liner lock for uh one of the blades, right? Sure. Yeah, and the the the concept of that mechanism of using a liner to stabilize a blade open and lock it in place is not new by any stretch. But it's in I guess like uh case in point is is really just that um there are lots of mechanisms and lots of patterns and styles and things like that that we um sensationalize today in custom knife making when it really has been done over and over and over again uh in older antique blades and we just forgot about it or came like uh went out of style, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:27

Absolutely. A good example is the Buck 110. A lot of guys think that the Buck 110 with that rear um lock tab was the first um was the first design of its type, and uh Hankles had that same knife at least as far back as 1877. I show that knife almost identical to the Buck um in the 1870s from from Hankels from Germany. Um so you you're right, Aaron, that a lot of these designs that people think are are new or revolutionary are really just a um um a reproduction, maybe not a reproduction, it's just a the the um the recarnation of an old pattern. And I really think that a lot of these guys, like I really believe that then when Buck designed that knife, I believe that they had um access uh to a German lockback folder um that they looked at and said, wow, what a what a what a great idea, what a cool design. I don't think they just they popped into their head, I think that they stumbled across a knife, whether it was a Hankels or another German company. That was a that was a popular design with a lot of German cutlery companies that I think they came across that and said, hey, let's let's redo this. So not not not new.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

Yeah. Well, I mean, the same can really be said for a lot of automatic knives and their and their mechanisms. I mean, in especially since the 80s, the tactical folder and automatic knives have been uh well, I I don't know, the probably like the tactical knife industry as a whole can be contributed uh in large part to these this concept of fighting pocket knives and whatnot. And I see a lot of mechanisms, uh, and a lot of mechanisms that were invented or improved upon, but based on old technology since especially the 80s, right? Um, and it it's it is kind of interesting to me, uh, at least where the like basic concepts uh makers will find specific elements that they don't like about it, and then they'll fix that thing, and then that becomes their claim to fame uh from a uh mechanism perspective.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Absolutely. You mentioned tacticals, and a lot of these companies um started using coil springs um, you know, to fire the blade, which really is a great idea. Coil spring is is so neat because if you have a leaf spring and you fire a switch blade, whether it's a tactical or a vintage knife, if that blade hits something while it's while it's you know opening, it stops dead in its tracks. But if you have a knife that has a coil spring and hits something and you pull the handle back, uh that blade continues to open under the coil spring or the watch-like mechanism. And you think, oh, what a great idea. That must have come along, you know, sometime in the 1980s or 90s. Huh. That that design on switchblades dates back more than a hundred years. So I have patents and I've seen knives, um, switchblades with the coil spring from the later 1800s. So there again, you're right. Um, it's it's always hard to find something that's new that it it really is a a redo of something that was invented a long time before that.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

Yeah. So can you um can you uh describe to the listeners and to me um some of the earliest uh styles of knives or patterns that we might see in the last uh few hundred years? I mean, I I know that you have like your whittlers and and things like that, but can you describe a little bit more of like the history of the utilitarian pattern and maybe what some of those would look like? Sure.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

Um like I said, from that from the 1600s on up until the real late 1700s, knives were mostly pr pretty basic, pretty simple looking. Um, it really wasn't until the early 1800s when when patterns and ideas start to kind of explode. It's almost like there's a a revolution in design, and there's makers that are kind of one-uping each other. Um by the time the the first, what they call the first great World's Fair was that was the Crystal Palace in Sheffield, eight, England in um, and not Sheffield, uh London, I'm sorry, in 1851. Um this this threw down a gauntlet to not just cutlers, but to all different makers of different things to say, hey, bring out your best products, bring out your best people, show us what you can really do. And they they knew that was coming. So really in the 1840s and and before that, a lot of cutlery companies started really upping their game, started coming out with new patterns and and and making things that were more intricate. Um but if if you think about older patterns, um you know the the Whittler is an old pattern that goes back to the 1700s, and oddly enough, the the Whittler name is a new name. You know, we we've talked about that on our show, especially with Charlie, that that um for for me it's always tough because um, and we've been kind of joking so much on the show about it, but like slip joint. I mean, there is there is no reference to anything slip joint uh uh past the last few decades. In the old days, um, whether it was England, Germany, or America, everybody called those knives a pocket knife, a pen knife, or a spring knife. And a spring knife didn't mean it was a uh a switchblade, it meant it had a spring in the back. Um, and of course, jack knife was another popular term. Um so uh some names, some names go way back in history. The Warrencliffe goes way back in history, the Congress goes way back in history, and I guess when I say way back, I mean the the early to mid-1800s. Um pruning knives, um, I guess that's a pretty generic term. But but there was at the cattle knife, cattle knife didn't come around really until the late 1800s, but it still was a was a specific pattern that you would find from different makers from both England, America, and again Germany. Um so I guess I'm I'm not sure if that answered your question very well. Um but I I see the most I see the most interesting time period of cutlery really from the early 1800s to about World War I. Um when World War I hit, the several problems happened. We we lost so many soldiers in you know to the war um from Europe and from America. And also um England itself economically was was falling by the wayside. You know, Germany in the 1800s in the late 1800s, Germany was what Japan was um many decades later. They were producing pretty good products for a lot less money. Um so what was happening was that the only way that England could really compete um in even in the early 1900s was to radically reduce how many knives they offered and to start offering cheaper models. A lot of their fancy stuff was was going to the wayside, they just couldn't sell it. There were there weren't enough buyers, um, which was really sad. So between the wars, between World War I and World War II, you start seeing a kind of a sadly a um um a loss of of great cutlers, a loss of great knives. I mean, you know, people would say, oh yeah, well, case tested and Remington were both around their heyday was 1920 to 1940. And that's true. And they made really good knives, but they weren't really fancy knives. They were, I mean, they made some fancy models, some some nice patterns. Um, but that for the most part, they were just really good utilitarian knives of really high quality. So I guess I'm I'm maybe I'm not very clear in what I'm trying to say, but but the Sheffielders and some of the early Americans, I always think of New York Knife Company as producing a lot of Sheffield-esque knives. I mean, beautiful knives, beautiful patterns. Um, but the problem is, like everything, is that when you build something that's really intricate, really fancy, that costs more money. Um and as money starting to tie up, uh starts to, I'm sorry, dry up, um, so do the so do the products. And then of course we have the Great Depression in 1929. Well, that that wiped out so many companies. Um, it it really was almost the nail in the coffin for for so many cutlery companies, again, both in Europe and America.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

No, no, and and all that makes perfect sense. Like I it knife history is world history, I would say, in some ways, because you can see the the causal chain uh for how patterns and and and industry becomes uh uh prevalent, like how it rises, how it sustains, and then it falls, right? Because if you think about like the uh early 1800s, um the the uh post-Revolutionary War uh era of America gives rise to uh a ton of agriculture and um and export from the the Americas, right? And the economy in England, especially uh for products that are exported, uh, has a status, right? It changes because America becomes its own superpower. And then you have uh you have war, you have economic uh uh turmoils and things like that due to uh everything that's going on from a world politics perspective. And I could see where as you're making these artisan knives in Sheffield for a very sophisticated, uh contained sphere in Europe primarily, that the the pinnacle of artistry is there. But then as things start to shift to the Americas and like the freedom and all the good things that America is uh uh uh touting uh with uh with you know free enterprise and uh uh the land of milk and honey, right? That I could see where uh that starts to dwindle. Which is what's interesting though is this idea where there's a shift more now are in the latter part of the Sheffield era into um souvenir knives is probably the wrong term, but uh if we think specifically about buoy knives and how the the larger portion of of buoy knives that we are are imprinted with were actually not produced in America, but produced by Sheffield cutlers, correct? Correct, correct. And so at least uh uh there's there's like the the vendetta knives of France or whatever that have kind of circulated uh back and forth, and they're you know they have the Moore's head knives or whatever, and those were produced in France, but for a uh uh for a souvenir type of kit like kitschy market. Um we have the uh the Duke Duke knives and things like that that you see uh to and fro. And I I it's interesting, like is is the the rise in some of these more standardized utilitarian or kitschy patterns a result of the industrial revolution and the ability to just you know make things for popularity's sake versus the utilitarian's uh sake that was you know pre uh end of the 1800s?

SPEAKER_01 42:13

Um I think that um I think that that like I said earlier, I think that knives were more important the further back you go, but they were still really important, especially in the early 1900s. I mean, every farmer needed a pocket knife, um, every mechanic needed a pocket knife, and a lot of these knives were were had different uses. I mean, the Boy Scouts um in America came about, I think, in 1910. You had all these Boy Scout knives, it was a good way to train kids, you know, to use cutlery. Um and and there was still, I think, so many people that just carried a general purpose pocket knife for any small usage. Um, you had touched a little bit on just the history, and to me, um, I always joke that I've learned more about the history of America and Europe because of my knife collecting than I ever did in school. Because every time I I want to research something or think about a product, it uh a knife, I mean, it leads me down a trail of of finding out about people in history and companies and towns and cities. And and to me, that's just really fascinating. It's it's again, it's it's fun just to look at the history surrounding the knife itself. And with that said, I would love to encourage uh anybody out there to write articles. And people always say, Oh, I'm not a writer. I'm not a writer. This was never I'm not I'm not a professional writer by any stretch of the imagination. Um, I just have an interest and a passion that leads me to to look at something and think, oh, I'd like to write something about that. And again, the internet does have a great um source of general information. Um, I I I People would be surprised if if they thought they couldn't write an article to sit down and pick up a knife they have or a couple knives they have, do a little research, start writing, have your friends, relatives, wife, husband reread things. Um, you know, to maybe help correct some sentence structure, something. But I I think I would love to see more people out there write articles and and maybe work on some papers and maybe work into books. I I don't know, but I I think it's really easier than than a lot of people think.

SPEAKER_00 44:32

Yeah, I mean, a a perfect example is I I think I heard about this from uh the catchbit show, but uh there was a uh woman named Victoria, I'm gonna butcher her last name. Is it uh Boochamp or Bow Bowchamp that wrote a dissertation on the workshops of uh of the cutlery industry in in uh Hallamshire?

SPEAKER_01 44:55

Correct. Um I haven't I haven't I've read it, but not in a couple of years now, so I'd be uh it would be stretching my memory to try and and think more about that. But she it was it was a college project, and she basically went through all of the tax records, which was a clever thing to do, um uh back in some of these companies to find specific information regarding you know how many people worked, how many apprentices worked, how long companies were around for. So she kind of went through the back door to to dig up some great research on on uh the history of certain cutlery, you know, uh companies. Uh, and and she was not an enthusiast or a hobbyist uh that I'm aware of. I think um she must have had some connection to to you know knives or cutlery in general, but she wrote a fantastic paper um just by by by digging, by finding information, putting it together.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

Yeah, because I I think that her there's two volumes uh that encompass the 1750s to 1900s, and I think that the first one is maybe like 300 some pages, and the second one is uh 280 some. I mean, so like fairly uh I wouldn't say comprehensive work uh that you can really I mean you can't say that the the history of cutlery in in that era was compreh comprehensive by two books, but if you look through, there's a lot of really good insights into cutlery and uh uh by these, and she's writ wrote it for a dissertation, you know. Uh so it's interesting to me, like as people kind of pick up areas of of interest, uh, especially in knives and things, that if you if you want to find them, there are a ton of rabbit holes. And that's what I've found is uh, you know, kind of like the impetus for this podcast is to uh open up the ra rabbit holes of uh who is this maker, what knowledge do they have to share? Can we dig a little bit further than the surface, like just the magazine article surface and the individual work in order to get to know that maker? Um obviously doesn't apply as much to those who are no longer with us, but it's the those who I can speak to and kind of pick their brains. That's kind of the idea is to document it and to uh ask them maybe my own stupid questions, and hopefully that's uh uh a bunch of other people's stupid questions as well. So um yeah. So uh tell me a little bit. Um, there's something I've been interested to know, uh, especially when it comes to uh pocket knife embellishments, uh, and uh it's the kind of the concepts of of pinching bolsters and uh chamfered bolsters and things like that, like all the different types of uh embellishments that are on pocket knives or uh were at the time. Uh it seems like there's too many to count, but the naming uh for things has changed over time. For instance, uh it it appears to me that uh a chamfered bolster, uh, which would be called that in the uh in the uh I guess the antique world of manufacturing, is now what a lot of people consider a pinch bolster. But those are two very different things uh in the antique cutlery industry, correct? Um yes.

SPEAKER_01 48:20

One one small frustrating problem with having old catalogs is that while it's a it's a a wealth of information and knowledge showing models, showing, and the old catalogs were beautifully drawn. As you have to remember, that they weren't really using photography, they were using artists to to draw sketches of knives, but they are so accurate and so wonderfully done. But the problem is most companies um up until the early 1900s would just group knives into groups of one blade, two blade, three blade. And then generally all they would all they would um would really detail is what kind of what size it was, how many blades they had, and what type of handle material they had. So you can see pages of different bolsters like you're talking about, and they're all beautiful, but they really weren't labeled as to what they were. Um, you know, uh a classic pattern was a rat tail bolster. Well, then they had a double rat tail and a triple rat tail, which is really cool. Um, the pinched bolster, like you say, is actually one of my favorites. It looks like a regular kind of rounded bolster, and it's almost like at the at the end of the bolster where it meets the blade or the opposite side, it's almost like if you took your thumb and forefinger and actually squeezed a little pinch on the end of that bolster, it just gives it this classic to me, it's just a beautiful look. Um, but they had ring bolsters and flat bolsters, and then if you look at some of the barlows, you know, they had all different types of long bolsters. A barlow typically would have a bolster length of of one-third the length of the handle. It's kind of a rough uh description, where most bolsters are are relatively short, um, you know, on knives. Um, and of course you have your shadow patterns, which means no bolster. Uh sometimes you'll have a bolster on the front end or the blade end and not on the other end. Um but but you are right. The the the the embellishments to me are are really what um put the icing on the cake, as they say. It's like I I not I love a good knife, but if you put on a fancy shield, and there's and shields are like bolsters. I mean, there's no end to them. They know the federal shields and bar shields and oval shields, and and and you can have one shield, a federal shield, and have a dozen different variations of that. Um and then the bolsters go on and on and on. Um then you can add little the little subtle touches like the coining, and the coining usually was referred to just this little these little lines on the edge of the liner. And they'd actually have a little tool that looked like um uh what do they call it for making pie crust. Um, it has a little um, I guess I'm I'm I'm not a cook or a chef, so I shouldn't even be saying that, but I I've seen these tools that that make patterns and dough. And they would they would use these similar tools to to to run along the the the brass edge and make these cool little lines that they called them coining, which was the same as when you look at like a dime or see the the little edges on the edge of a coin. Um, and then to go beyond that, they had all of the different file work on blades, um, you know, hand-cut file work, that there again, it's it's so many different patterns and styles and and really beautiful. And on some of the really fancy knives, they would file work the inside. And you're thinking, why on earth would you file work something that you don't see? Well, that it's just that it's that little extra touch that when you open the blade and look inside and go, my God, look at that. They did something that you only uh, I shouldn't say only a collector, but only someone who was really observant would see that and go, what a beautiful touch to something you normally wouldn't notice. Um so yeah, there's there is just endless, endless varieties and shapes. And you talk about bolsters um from the mid-1800s that were silver and lead-filled. You know, they would press these bolsters out in a stamp and then and fill them with lead and then solder that to the liners. Um, I mean, I I could go on with days on that of just talking about that. Um, and then you look at the blades. I mean, there were so many blades that were stamped not just with the name, but maybe they would have um different stamps on the length of the blade. They would, you know, uh a cattle knife's a good example. A lot of cattle knives had the word cattle knife stamped right on lengthwise on the blade itself. Or they'd have the company name, you know, Bert's best cattle knife. Um so the the varieties are endless. And then you look at some of the multi-bladed knives, you know, whether they're a sportsman's knife or a horseman's knife or a camping knife, to see all the cool tools they had in there, you know, not just a blade, but a saw, you know, picks, uh all all, um, different types of boring tools. Um and some of these, some of these knives from the 1800s could have, you know, uh 50 blades, up to 100 blades for an exhibition knife, or more if you're looking at the Rogers Year knife or or the Norfolk knife. But um I I guess it's it's it's even for me, having done this for 50 years, I'm still overwhelmed when I see things I haven't seen or see a catalog cut and go, my God, look at that. So I it has not lost its luster for me as far as collecting and studying and and and just thinking about knives in general.

SPEAKER_00 54:00

Yeah. Well, I yeah, I I guess it probably could be said that pocket knives were the original Lego um uh for like the Lego enthusiasts, you know, you just like see you see everything in Legos today, and even still you see people who take a traditional sets and turn them into something completely different, and pocket knives just have that same kind of variation. So kind of to that point, it um my encouragement to to pocket knife makers is there are so many resources of uh out there uh you might have to search um and you might have to spend some money on patterns, and you might have to talk to uh some people like like Neil here about the uh the histories involved with it if you want to go down that rabbit hole. But there is a a lot of very, very compelling um examples of knives out there uh that should be able to spark your imagination beyond the standard uh Zulu spear or Lanny's clip or um or saddle horn or things like that. And really the the entire knife like pocket knife industry is your playground. Um so that's that's kind of in the focus of like what I'm looking at in my pocket knife journey is is really to uh try to focus on the knives that appeal personally to me, and then also try to delve into some of these techniques and whatnot uh that I I find uh attractive, like pinch bolsters, uh different than Chamfer bolsters that has its own technique for how you file those inappropriately and get them to look just right. The same same way as you have old uh marble sculptures that look like the folds on the clothes and everything are natural. Um to me, it's the same way as when I look at a pinch bolster. It really does look like somebody is pinching like linen or something on there. And if if I can get like get close to how perfect that looks, um, it would be an interesting um embellishment to put on blades. So that's that's kind of the point. Is like there's there's a lot of different ways to think about knife building, uh especially pocket knives, and it really just depends on how much um how much you're willing to invest in the backstory and figuring out how to replicate those techniques.

SPEAKER_01 56:22

Yep. I would, if I could give maybe one piece of advice to both makers and collectors in both ways, I would say at the very least, start out by buying uh Levine's book. It's it's called Blade, um, Blade's Guide to Knives Now, but there's there's been several renditions. I would get the most current one. But that that has has so many um, it has so much variety of information. It shows patterns of knives, it shows different countries. Um, there's a good history section in there. Um it's just it's it's it's almost a perfect all-around book. After that, I would I would certainly get a Goines book. Um Goines has a little more detailed information, but far less uh pictures and a little less general history. And then after that, there's if you go on, if you look on eBay and look under knife books or cutlery books, there's a lot of reproduction books that anybody can buy really inexpensively, whether it's Schrade or whether it's uh Joseph Rogers catalog. Um there are catalog, reprint reprint catalogs that exist for really what I call short money. Um, and that's where you really need to start. And then I would also wanted to kind of circle back on on writing, telling people that you don't have to be, you don't have to be an expert, you don't have to be a historian. You can even write a story about a knife that was in your family that belonged to your dad or your grandfather, if it was something that he used for a purpose, maybe in war, maybe gardening. And there's a lot of of um, I think special interest stories that knife magazine would love to print. And if nothing else, it kind of gives you a start to maybe writing something. If you say, you know what, dad always carried this pocket knife. I've had it. I want to write a little something about him and the knife and what he used it for. And even if you don't send it for publication, I think it's fun for someone to sit down and do a little, you know, uh a little documentary of their own um connection with the cutlery world.

SPEAKER_00 58:30

Yeah, well, that is interesting on the uh on the publication uh side. Uh speaking of the fact that you actually write for publication purposes, uh, especially magazine. What what is kind of like the standard format, like uh so many words, or like what is the idea in, I guess, curtailing your editing and your storytelling to a certain format?

SPEAKER_01 58:52

Sure. So um I've been writing for Knife Magazine. I'm actually a staff correspondent, which means I'm a regular writer. Um, and I've been writing for Knife Magazine for about um 20 years now. It used to be called Knife World, and then when Mark Zeleski took it over, he changed it to Knife Magazine. And it's a it's a it's such a great magazine. Um, not only is it in full color, it's a large format size, but Mark does such a great job in in combining all the different types of cutlery into one magazine. You know, he'll almost always have articles on antique knives, vintage knives, custom knives, modern knives, military knives. You know, he'll have a nice uh variety in every magazine. Um so I've been writing for, like I said, for 20 years. I've got, I don't know, I don't know how many articles, over 100 articles, I suppose. And I usually pick out different things that interest me, or I'll I'll see a knife and I'll think, oh, that's kind of cool. I want to write something about that. Um, typically, an article for knife magazine is gonna be usually probably a minimum of 800 to 1,000 words would be a small article, and a large article would be uh 2,500 words to 3,000 words. There are every once in a while, somebody will write an article. It's a two-part article, so it might be you know 2,500 words times two. Um if you do decide to write something, you can certainly submit it to Mark. Um, what I would really advise is to have someone um, you know, proofread your article, make sure it flows nice, make sure your spelling's right, um, and and don't try to BS your way through anything. You know, if you don't if you don't have specific information, history information, don't make it up because Mark will know and he won't he will not publish it. Um and that doesn't apply to something that's a human interest story. If you do want to write a knife about that, you're like I said, your grandfather had or your dad had, um, you know, that that I think those are really neat. Um pictures are also important. If you do submit pictures, they have to be, they have to be uh well done. Um I I'm no photographer either, but I've I've kind of honed some skill in taking pictures over the years. I know that lighting is really important, is actually more important than the camera itself. If anybody did want to reach out to Aaron about writing an article, I'd be happy to help give some other advice, maybe some, you know, a little bit of coaching or something. So if somebody said, Boy, I really want to do this, but I don't know where to start, I have no idea. Um, I I'd I'd be thrilled to to you know to help through Aaron.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:35

So yeah, well, I appreciate that. I mean it's uh I that that's intriguing to me. I hope uh people listen to that and uh take that to heart because there's like there's so many different uh entities, there's so many different personalities that make up this knife world. And uh authors to me are the uh longest standing, right? I mean, the knives uh sometimes come and go, get put in private collections or whatever, but the spoken word and the written word um are two mainstays as far as I'm concerned, and be able to convey uh knives and knife history. And it's um I I don't feel that the magazine is dead uh in favor of the internet. I really uh do like ephemera and uh the you know having books and having magazines and reading them. And I don't know that as long as there's a place uh for pocket knives, that there will ever uh not be a place for uh written word. So uh if people want to take up that mantle, it's the same kind of concept that I was talking to Linda Carstone and Scrimshaw about. Like she she wants to be able to impart her knowledge uh to the next generation of enthusiasts to be able to share and to educate and to and to pass that baton. Um, but there are there's not that many people, or at least there's nobody that comes to her. Maybe it's because uh of maybe it's because of a uh lack of of gide up to talk to people like that. But uh I I I appreciate that. If anybody is interested in taking Neil up on that, just uh let me know and I will be happy to liaison uh and get you guys started in it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:12

You know, with that said, um Marcus told me several times that he's always looking for articles on new makers. And I think that that's that's that's kind of out of my expertise, and I don't know many new makers, but I think that because there are so many guys out there and and gals, women making knives, that I think that makes for a nice story too. Again, you don't have to be a historian, you just have to know something about the person, um, you know, how they got into knife making, maybe, maybe some of the of the patterns they make, um, you know, why they do it. Um, so that's that's that's a story that Mark is always looking for. And with so many new makers out there, I think a lot of people um might have the opportunity to write something on a new maker. Um, and and also um, and and you're right, I because I'm kind of older, I love printed uh media, I love magazines, but knife magazine and other publications have an awful lot of stuff online. So if you don't want to get a regular magazine, you can pay for a subscription and just do it all on the computer, which is, I mean, if you're a younger person, I'm sure that's your that's your mode of of information resource and and that's available too.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:26

Sweet. Well, um, Mark does a good job, and I I think that um it's it's definitely compelling to have uh a an editor that uh uh uh filters through content. Um I've always enjoyed the magazine because I always feel that everything's authentic and that when I'm when I'm reading something, I'm also learning something I can trust in that uh versus it being anecdotal evidences. So I mean, I definitely appreciate um everybody's contribution over there in producing a really uh well-thought out and well-written magazine. So, I mean, I have to thank you for that as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:05

Mark is not just the um editor, owner, publisher of that magazine. He is a phenomenal researcher and historian in his own right. Um, I also in saying that, I kind of think about GEC. You know, GEC is is so hugely, you know, popular right now. People love the brand and they make a great product for really low money, in my opinion. But if if you look at a company like Knife Magazine or GEC, you look at the people behind it, and Bill Howard, you know, who who runs, owns, and runs GEC, himself is a talented maker and he has an eye for what's what's right. Um, he knows how to put the product together. So I I'm always I guess I'm always impressed when when the captain of the ship can also uh steer the ship and repair the engine when needed. Um and I think that's what makes um a a a product. Or a company better than anyone else.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:03

Yeah. Yeah, I definitely think it's a lot easier to uh understand what you're talking about when you're actually able to make those things or when you're actually a subject matter expert in it. You know, in like the technology and cybersecurity and everything, we call them SMEs or SMEs, like subject matter experts. And what's funny about it is that sometimes you know one piece of information that just nobody else does, and that automatically makes you the subject matter expert. But there's kind of this paradigm shift, like when you when you get into the world of of uh knowledge where uh you become the authoritative body on something, uh, that you start taking uh maybe potentially leadership roles or qualities on because you are the uh the guardian of that information. But it's interesting because you know you've done uh a lot of research. You have uh you know a collection that you have reference to, um, you have uh friends and uh cohorts of information and uh you're like-minded, right? And by age and by osmosis and by interest, you become a subject matter expert that is uh you know very compelling. Like there's not a lot of you guys out there, right? And so I think like for people like me, um, who have spent uh my entire life you know being a knife enthusiast, but more recently a knife maker and doing this, you know, historical podcast, whatever you call it, um, and talking to old makers and things like that. Um, I'm just now uh getting into a place where uh I'm starting to uh you know research and filter myself and figure out what the most true thing is and and contextualize my knowledge set. And it's really good to have uh mentors and uh reference points like you uh and Mark and and other people in the industry that really just care a lot about the authenticity of information uh in order to guide me. Because uh, you know, one day if I can live long enough and I if I stick into this game uh for long enough, I will be that kind of person in 20, 30 years. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:16

That's right. Um I a standing joke I have with my two sons is I always tell them you might be smarter than me, but I know more than you. So the the one advantage of being older, and I don't think there's too many, is that you accumulate, you just accumulate so much in your time. You've you've seen a lot of things, you've read a lot of things, and you've made a lot of mistakes, or you've you've you've thought about something over and over and over because of your your age, that you maybe have a a few more a few more bullets in your in your uh holster than the guy next to you who's a little younger.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:51

Yeah. Yeah, it's the it's the resolve, right? It's the uh I you know what what point you're willing to take things to, you know what's uh you've thought about things more, you've stayed on the problem longer. I think there was some uh saying by Einstein, he's like, I'm not I'm not smarter, I've just stayed on the problem longer. Um and that's right. But I mean, but that is uh that is true of a lot of things where if you sit and will think about things long enough, uh, you can come up with some pretty innovative and amazing things. And I think that that's in a in a world where patience is not necessarily considered a virtue, it really is uh very beneficial to be patient, to take your time to think about through, you know, think through things and then to act on that when it makes sense. Um, but you know, I mean, I'm I'm I'm younger, I'll figure that out as I go along. But my kids look at me and they're like, uh, you're you're boring and you make us think about things and whatnot. I'm getting to that age where they're challenging me. So um, Neil, I really appreciate you spending the time with us and talking. I feel like we could probably go on another hour or two, um, but I'm sure you got other things to do. So it's been an absolute pleasure, and hopefully we can have you again on uh soon and talk more about knives and knife history. That'd be great, Aaron.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:06

I enjoyed the show. And and you're right. I I sometimes when I when we have a conversation, you feel like, man, I've only just touched on this and touched on that. Um, so I'd love to come back in the future. Um, you become a good friend, and I hope we can continue on. Yeah, absolutely. Anytime you're more than welcome on.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:29

Thank you for listening to another episode of the Good Old Blades Podcast. Remember that you are loved and God bless.