Thread: Swaty hones by Pike?

Hello gentlemen,

I chatted recently with Jon from jon-swords.com, he is contemplating putting a few of his swaty hones for sale. We exchanged a few emails about one of his hones that is branded Pike Swaty, and I sent him a link to one of the discussions of the past that suggested that Pike used Swaty's name as a marketing trick. Jon then sent me the attached picture - a genuine Swaty hone with a Pike label. That makes me open the discussion again - what was Pike's relationship to Swaty, and who manufactured the Pike&Swaty branded hones? (picture of one is attached, too) Jon is quite interested in your thoughts.

I can't answer your question regarding the Pike/Swaty relationship specifically. I can tell you that I have an Escher with the correct German Escher labels on the bottom and on the end of the stone that came in a box labeled Barber's Delight Pike Escher. I also have a couple of vintage Belgian coticules that came in Pike boxes.

Before Norton bought them out sometime around the first great depression Pike was a big outfit and distributed quite a bit of the European imports of whetstones. They may have had an arrangement with Swaty. Now I am wondering if the stones with the embossed Pike-Swaty on the surface were made in Austria by Swaty or by Pike in New Hampshire ?