Featured Vintage 'Stockman' knife. Made in Germany.

I wandered into a local antiques shop yesterday and bought this from a selection of maybe five or six knives on sale in a cabinet...



It's a large, three-blade 'stockman'-pattern knife, made in Germany, probably sometime in the early 1900s.



I gained an appreciation for old pocketknives about 10 years ago, when I was in university and realised that, while out of the house for long periods of time on my own for the first time, I needed something to cut things with, which wasn't a pair of scissors. And my collection started from there.

I've sold a few of my knives since then, but I'm always looking for cute or interesting ones to re-add to my collection.



Fixing this knife was a bit of a challenge. When I bought it, the blades were very tarnished and a bit rusted, and the mechanism was VERY stiff and jerky. It took a lot of sanding, polishing, and copious amounts of oil, but I was able to finally restore the knife to its original functional condition. The springs and joints and hinges were all JAMMED with crud, so it was extremely stiff. What some collectors call a 'nail-breaker'.

Now it's nice and smooth, and the blades have been sharpened and the metalwork polished.

Here it is with some of my other knives...



...As you can see here, it's quite large!

 

Just to give you an idea of how much effort went into cleaning this knife - here's a photograph of one of the paper towels I used to clean it with. All these black three-line streaks are from me pouring oil into the knife and then rubbing it back and forth across the paper-towel.

The lines are caused by all the crud and gunk and grime, trapped inside the springs and blades and hinges, being flushed out and leeched out by the oil.

It was just a matter of doing this over and over and over again, until the oil came out clear. It takes hours...

 

nice pocket knife....

 

Yeah I struggle finding knives I like. They're either too big, or too small, or they look incredibly UGLY.

I bought this one because it was a nice big size, without being stupidly huge, it had three blades in a configuration that I liked, and it had a nice, simple, plain appearance. No excessive embellishments or anything. Yes it was a bit on the high side, but what's that against something that will last for the rest of your life?