Vintage SAK Owners Club

[jazzbass]

  I'm a little confused by this statement. Are you proposing that they actually did something else? If so, what?

Is it my odd naming that is confusing? Or the chronology? AFAIK, the chronology of the 84mm wood saw goes like this:

c. 1955: 35TAP
c. 1963: 25TAP (this is the rare one)
c. 1963: 35TAM
c. 1966: 25TSM

I find it interesting that they tried the 25TAP saw very briefly after about a year into the LVNT period, but then got rid of it almost immediately in favor of the older 35T saw (this time machined and not polished). I'd love to know why they didn't like the 25TAP version. 

[MiniChamp]

Is it my odd naming that is confusing?

No. The confusing thing for me was the statement "it's almost like" which seems to suggest that they actually did something different. I believe that your proposed ordering and chronology are correct.

[wengercollector]

That knife is fantastic! Is this in your collection? I have some questions if so.

Yes it is. What questions do you have?

[M0rkoni]

In the mean time a little bit of vintage alox ones: Old Cross ELINOX with bail, "the whole nine yard" instant vintage collection... 

[kamakiri]

In the taxonomy I developed for my collection, I call the time period from 62-69 the "late vintage" or LVNT period. In the LVNT period there is a change from thin 1.0mm aluminum pen blade spacer to nickel silver. In general this coincided with the change from polished to machined saws and silver > black scissor springs.

I already understood that much.  I'm trying to assign/estimate dates for these smaller changes, like I have done for the '70s/91mm.

I'd like to refine and reorganize this list for 91mm main line production:
c. '63 End - Nickel Silver tipped tweezers
c. '63/'64 End -  Silver scissor spring
c. '63/'64 End -  Aluminum 'birdhead' spacer
c. '64-'66 End -  Polished Wood Saw
c. '66 End -  Angled Wood Saw teeth

I have a tendency to use start and end dates in my chronology since they do not always coincide but overlap like clip and drop point small blades.

Thin aluminum spacers come into being in the last part of the "mid vintage" (57-62) period. Prior to that they used a thicker 1.5mm spacer that was either aluminum or nickel silver in no way that seems to indicate preference. The thicker spacer goes away when the main/pen blade backspring is redesigned c 1960 to go from a design that was thicker at the pen blade side to one that was of uniform thickness (roughly 2.75mm).

I don't have very many of my own notes from this period, but broadly understand that all.  I would like to eventually work more on that period.  On the list are the transition dates from nickel silver liners to aluminum - for both 91mm 'sharp' transition and 83/84mm where parts may have been more mixed as MiniChamp has suggested. Use of the thin ~0.52mm aluminum liners.

 

[jazzbass]

Let's do some serious vintage - probably the favorite knife in my collection, the 1905 Model 290:



It's quite large. Here is a comparison of the screwdriver between other models:

[pic removed for bad info - will repost later]

[jnoxyd]

Great knife in excellent condition. Nice to see it again here.

[MiniChamp]

Let's do some serious vintage

Cool!!!   

It's quite large. Here is a comparison of the screwdriver between other models:

(Image removed from quote.)

I'm a bit puzzled. Ulli's table lists 1901 as the end year of the "Gesetzlich Geschützt" SD stamps. Also, as was recently discussed in Ulli's pictorial evolution thread, he thinks that Victorinox moved to three visible rivets around 1909. Are you sure about the dating estimate for the model 234k in that image?

There seem to be somewhat different opinions concerning SAK evolution in the very early 20th century. Any light you can shed here (When did they move to three visible rivets? When did they introduce the groove in the corkscrew? etc.) will be greatly appreciated.     

[jazzbass]

Cool!!!   
I'm a bit puzzled. Ulli's table lists 1901 as the end year of the "Gesetzlich Geschützt" SD stamps.

Oh man, that’s a brain fade mistake on my part that I forgot about. I originally took that pic with a 3 rivet Tourist but didn’t like the way the lighting came out. When I retook the picture I used a new-to-me 1890s Tourist and forgot to change the text overlay. 

Going to delete that one and repost with the correct info. Thanks for catching that!

[Huntsman]

Great knife in excellent condition. Nice to see it again here.

Yay    I very well remember the fascinating thread when JB first found this model    Thanks

 - Some interesting tools too
BTW - What is the wee tool between the saw and opener? And are the scales are glued on? 

[MiniChamp]

Three wood saw types:

(Image removed from quote.)

Cool pics (as usual), Jnoxyd.   I attach an image of the fourth type of wood saw from the 1960's that was mentioned by JAZZBASS.

AFAIK, the chronology of the 84mm wood saw goes like this:

c. 1955: 35TAP
c. 1963: 25TAP (this is the rare one)
c. 1963: 35TAM
c. 1966: 25TSM

I find it interesting that they tried the 25TAP saw very briefly after about a year into the LVNT period, but then got rid of it almost immediately in favor of the older 35T saw (this time machined and not polished). I'd love to know why they didn't like the 25TAP version.

If I understand correctly, this proposed chronology relates only to Victoria SAKs. AFAIK, things were a bit different for the Elinox line. I believe that the unpolished saws with 35 asymmetric teeth were first introduced on Elinox SAKs in the late 1950's and then when they started using them on the Victoria line, they didn't really make any new type of saw, but rather just adopted the Elinox saw variant for use on the Victoria line. It's possible that these saws with 35 teeth also lasted longer on Elinox SAKs, because they can be found on model 1240kU SAKs with a keyring. (So either these saws lasted longer on the Elinox line, or that the keyring was introduced on the Elinox line before it was introduced on the Victoria line, or both.)

[kamakiri]

Cool pics (as usual), Jnoxyd.   I attach an image of the fourth type of wood saw from the 1960's that was mentioned by JAZZBASS.
If I understand correctly, this proposed chronology relates only to Victoria SAKs. AFAIK, things were a bit different for the Elinox line. I believe that the unpolished saws with 35 asymmetric teeth were first introduced on Elinox SAKs in the late 1950's and then when they started using them on the Victoria line, they didn't really make any new type of saw, but rather just adopted the Elinox saw variant for use on the Victoria line. It's possible that these saws with 35 teeth also lasted longer on Elinox SAKs, because they can be found on model 1240kU SAKs with a keyring. (So either these saws lasted longer on the Elinox line, or that the keyring was introduced on the Elinox line before it was introduced on the Victoria line, or both.)

Seems to me that the 35TAP saws lasted past '63.  It's easy to find ones with black scissor springs, aluminum tweezers and either birdhead material.

What tweezer, scissor spring and 'birdhead' go with that 25TAP?  Machined main blade tang?

[MiniChamp]

What tweezer, scissor spring and 'birdhead' go with that 25TAP?

Aluminum spacer, no tweezers (missing) and no real scissors spring (there is a small relic suggesting a silver spring).

[kamakiri]

Aluminum spacer, no tweezers (missing) and no real scissors spring (there is a small relic suggesting a silver spring).

Perfect, thanks. That does confirm c.'63 production and not outside of '62 to '64 possibility.  I actually think the broken scissor spring attachment is  somewhat stronger proof of OE status. Especially if it's the preceding/earlier material.  The rest of the knife should be able to confirm earlier or latter on that date range. 

I have a 136ka Craftsman with a broken black spring with the 35TAP saw. Aluminum spacer and tweezer makes it close to yours, but overall polish on mine put it in the latter part and I estimate c. '64/'65, or shortly *after* your 25 TAP.

[Reinier]

Let's do some serious vintage - probably the favorite knife in my collection, the 1905 Model 290:

(Image removed from quote.)

Nice to see you reposted that pic!

I bid on it as well. I was truly hoping nobody had noticed the eBay listing

[jazzbass]

Cool!!!   
Also, as was recently discussed in Ulli's pictorial evolution thread, he thinks that Victorinox moved to three visible rivets around 1909.

This is one change I'm still not sure about. I haven't seen any sources for the 1909 date other than the "official" Victorinox timeline, which has so many errors that I question all of it. But I have seen (and own) several stainless steel 4 rivet knives and I believe them to be original. That said, these knives were all hand made at the time, so it would have been no big deal for a knife maker to make one with 4 rivets post 1923 despite three rivets being the "standard way. "

The other thing that makes me think that 4 rivets lasted longer are sales numbers. Knives made pre-cap lifter with the large screwdriver fall into what I call the "Original" era. I divide the Original era into two periods - Early Original (EORG) knives with 4 rivets and Late Original (LORG) knives with 3 rivets. If the EORG period really only went from 1897-1909, then the LORG period would span from c. 1909-1930.  This means that the LORG period lasted 2x longer than EORG, as thus you should see many, many more LORG knives for sale than EORG. Esp since as a growing company during this era, any later period would always be biased to show up more in online sales. 

But the numbers don't back this up. Of all the Original era knives sold in the last 10 years online, 42% were EORG and 58% were LORG. This is one of the main reasons I tend to think the EORG period pushes out until at least 1920. There are too many EORG knives sold to represent such a small time window of manufacture.

Of course, this is all basically archeology. Looking at various bits of evidence and trying to draw conclusions on it all, and there's going to be a lot of guesses that are wrong. The 4 rivets knives could very well have disappeared in 1909, but there would have to be another explanation for their over-representation vs 3 rivet knives in knife sales.

[jazzbass]

Yay    I very well remember the fascinating thread when JB first found this model    Thanks

 - Some interesting tools too
BTW - What is the wee tool between the saw and opener? And are the scales are glued on?

I believe it to be a leather punch. Here's a closer detail of it along with a detail view of the hoof pick w/ file and drill tool.



The interesting thing about it is that it's hollow - if you look at the end it's not a solid awl like we're all used to. It's more like one of these:

[Huntsman]

Ah - Thanks for the detail JB -  Much appreciated - I wondered if it might be one of those - A hole making punch - but normally hit with a hammer - which would not be good for a SAK!
And a cut out on both sides of the handles ... unusual !

Wonderful knife - Not just the age and size - But also all the unusual/whacky tools - Thanks again for showing us

Another Q - Do you ever think of a little cleaning up your older models?
You see some old models completely transformed and polished and shiny - which I think looks ridiculous for what is an antique!
But sometimes a little cleaning makes it look a lot better - eg a bit of wire wool on the black bits around the joints - which is probably just hardened old oil and muck!
I can also understand the 'leave exactly as is' approach!

[MiniChamp]

This is one change I'm still not sure about.

Thanks a lot for the detailed reply!    It seems to be really hard to figure out this early evolution and it's extremely interesting to know your current perspective.

I haven't seen any sources for the 1909 date other than the "official" Victorinox timeline

Are you referring to the famous (attached) image? If so, it's not really clear to me that they ever said anything about moving to three visible rivets. The fact that the second officer's knife from the top has only three visible rivets may be a consequence of not considering it a significant detail. The thing that they do explicitly mention about 1909 (in the text accompanying the image as well is in their official chronology) is that this is the year when they started to inlay the Swiss shield on the fiber scales. This is something that they also say as part of telling their history outside chronology lists (in their 1984 book "The Knife and its History" as well as in the book by Derek Jackson).

The point is that there are certainly quite a lot of four rivets SAKs that have the inlaid Swiss shield, so the claim that they started inlaying it in 1909 actually supports the theory that the move to three visible rivets occurred somewhat later. Of course, as you pointed out, it's not clear how much weight one should give to anything that they say.

[MiniChamp]

I believe it to be a leather punch. Here's a closer detail of it along with a detail view of the hoof pick w/ file and drill tool.

(Image removed from quote.)

The interesting thing about it is that it's hollow - if you look at the end it's not a solid awl like we're all used to.

This tool was quite common on multiblade folding knives with many blades in the late 19th century, but I don't recall seeing it on any Victorinox SAK other than this model 290. I attach some images of an old 9-layer knife that has this tool. As can be seen from the image showing it along with a Swiss champ, it is quite small (80mm long). It's a very well made knife. Really impressive craftsmanship, but not nearly as impressive as what you can see in the following link:
http://www.waynedriskillminiatures.com/miniature-firearms/antique-joseph-rodgers-sons-of-sheffield-england-miniature-40-blade-exhibition-knife/

[jnoxyd]

An interesting knife on eBay :
-1963 advertisement
- triangular awl
- aluminum small blade spacer
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F233275192707

[wengercollector]

There are many difficulties to date a knife. One important thing is, that often, there`s not a changing point where one new tool replace an old one. One exception is the can opener. But for the screwdriver/caplifter for example, the old one was used for a long time where the new one already was introduced. You also could order a knife with the old or the new tool. The same thing with the rivets. I know some knives from arount 1900 with only 3 rivets and I know knives with 4 rivets from arount 1915. For mop scales for example, they used alway only 3 visible rivets - 2 rivets on smaller, 75 mm knives. And Victorinox provided some knifemakers with tool/scale kits. Then it was up to the knifemaker if they want to build up a knife with 3 or 4 visible pins.

The same thing with the triangular awl. The new one was available since 1961. But I`m sure that any dealer could order still knives with the old triangular awl if they want so.

[jazzbass]

An interesting knife on eBay :
-1963 advertisement
- triangular awl
- aluminum small blade spacer

I've posted this Tourist before with similar features and date stamp:

There are many difficulties to date a knife. One important thing is, that often, there`s not a changing point where one new tool replace an old one. One exception is the can opener. But for the screwdriver/caplifter for example, the old one was used for a long time where the new one already was introduced. You also could order a knife with the old or the new tool. The same thing with the rivets. I know some knives from arount 1900 with only 3 rivets and I know knives with 4 rivets from arount 1915. For mop scales for example, they used alway only 3 visible rivets - 2 rivets on smaller, 75 mm knives. And Victorinox provided some knifemakers with tool/scale kits. Then it was up to the knifemaker if they want to build up a knife with 3 or 4 visible pins.

Agree with all of this. Post WWII I think the best you can get is +/- a year or two. Pre WWII? Lots of bets are off. As an example, I've been collection for > 10 years and when I first started most people (myself included) thought that 1923 was the "changeover" year from carbon steel > stainless. In other words, if you found a carbon steel knife it was pre-23 and a stainless knife was post-23. Now, having looked at thousands of knife sales and different pieces of members collections, I know that Victorinox continued making carbon steel Officer's Knives well past 1923 - into the mid 1940s at least. So yeah, a stainless knife will date to 1923 at the earliest, but a carbon steel knife? You have to look at other features. For at least two decades you could order the same knife in either carbon or stainless steel (I'm guessing the former were cheaper).

Even info from Victorinox is incorrect in the face of observed knives. For example, they say that fiber scales end in 1937 and the cap lifter is introduced in 1942:



I have never - not once in over 10 years of doing this - seen an Officer's Knife in celuloid/celidor scales with a large screwdriver. I have, however, seen > 100 different fiber scaled knives with cap lifters. I personally own at least 20, including one dated to 1935. Personally, I gave up trying to date knives to specific years long, long ago. I group mine into categories based on a shared set of observable features (e.g. fiber scales + caplifter), give that category a name, and leave it at that. When I first started I thought that this aforementioned fiber/caplifter category was from 1937-1942. Now I suspect it actually is from 1931-1937. But the category itself and the features it's based on are still the same.

[jnoxyd]

Fiber scales with cap lifter, 1931 on scale

[Rapidray]

Great looking knives for sure

[Rapidray]

Let's do some serious vintage - probably the favorite knife in my collection, the 1905 Model 290:

(Image removed from quote.)

It's quite large. Here is a comparison of the screwdriver between other models:

[pic removed for bad info - will repost later]

Now that is really cool and interesting knife! 

[kamakiri]

An interesting knife on eBay :
-1963 advertisement
- triangular awl
- aluminum small blade spacer
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F233275192707
(Image removed from quote.)

Was just gonna post the same. Perfect example of why you can't count on any advertising or non-main line knife for reliable end dates. Ditto for Hoffritz and Elinox lines.

There are also lots of catalog cuts that show both types of awls together on the same page.  I don't think it was a very hard transition, even for main line production.

[MiniChamp]

There are many difficulties to date a knife.

True, but this is what makes it fun. 

As I see it, there are actually two different questions here. One of them is the question of dating a concrete knife, which often cannot be done with much precision. In fact, I don't even know how to date a current Victorinox Huntsman, say, to any time window other than "post-2011." The other question is that of dating various evolution changes that occurred. This is something that, in principle, should be doable.

Over time, we do seem to make some progress as a community. The links at the top of the sticky MTO thread "SAK/Swisstool dating and identification resources" can take anyone to lots of information that would have been much harder to obtain just a few years ago. Sharing information can go a long way to increase our collective knowledge.

One important thing is, that often, there`s not a changing point where one new tool replace an old one.

True, most transitions take time and there are also other complexities, such as changes occurring at different times for different SAK models, but it shouldn't be beyond our ability to deal with such complexities.

But for the screwdriver/caplifter for example, the old one was used for a long time where the new one already was introduced. You also could order a knife with the old or the new tool.

Many thanks for this very interesting information.   Can you explain how you know this? Also, do you have any estimates for the start and/or end of this long transition?

The same thing with the rivets. I know some knives from arount 1900 with only 3 rivets and I know knives with 4 rivets from arount 1915. For mop scales for example, they used alway only 3 visible rivets - 2 rivets on smaller, 75 mm knives.

I think that it is well understood that things were a bit different for special scales, etc. (the above shown model 290, for example, seems to have just one semi-visible rivet). For me, at least, the core question concerning the transition to three visible rivets is about officer knives with fiber scales. It's certainly possible that it was a long transition, but then it should have started at some point and ended on another and I'm very curious to know when.

And Victorinox provided some knifemakers with tool/scale kits. Then it was up to the knifemaker if they want to build up a knife with 3 or 4 visible pins.

This information about such hybrid production taking place is also very interesting. Can you explain how you know this? Thanks!

[MiniChamp]

Fiber scales with cap lifter, 1931 on scale
(Image removed from quote.)

It's a very interesting knife!     Do have more pictures of it? If so, it would be great if you post them as well.

[jnoxyd]

It's a very interesting knife!     Do have more pictures of it? If so, it would be great if you post them as well.

It is not my knife to my regret, here are all pictures I have.