Thread: Camillus New York USA

Today unloading a toolbox I am retiring I rediscovered this Camillus.



I know it belonged to my late father in law and I thought as did my wife that it was a phone company knife since his cousin in law worked for Ma Bell and had a bad case of what's mine is mine and what's the phone company's is mine also. However when I asked my brother in law in law who spent a career woking for and retired from Ma Bell he said he didn't think it was a standard issue from the phone company. I also asked my brother who is a knife collector and he didn't.know anything about it. I did a half hearted search and didn't find anything on the surface, not in a search for phone company knife, lineman's knife, electrician's knife, square point folding knife or any other terms relating to Camillus pocket knives nor could I find any matching pictures. Does anyone have any ideas about it's purpose and possibly how old it is?

Interestingly, as soon as I had finished posting this thread I looked one more time and found this listing...


...which is exactly the same knife but searching under the many listing names I still don't find.any links to more information or even another exactly like it.

Yea, they are known by various names like yacht knife, sailing/rigging knife and so on. With the addition of a marlin spike this type of knife was issued in various navies.

http://www.yourbreak.com/images/dyna...spike_2_lg.jpg

I have a Buck knife near identical to the Camillus linked to and somewhere I might have my old pusser issue one.

Bob

Well, I realize I'm answering my own questions here but I figured someone else might find it useful. Here is some information I found on tang stamp identification.
https://www.americanedgeknives.com/b...s-tang-stamps/
Based on the tang stamp this one was made between 1960 and the late 1970s so it's not the pre-war American steel that I had hoped it might be but it is still carbon steel and American blades of that era were still pretty good if my understanding is correct.