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THREE Russell Barlow folding pocket knives
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THREE Russell Barlow folding pocket knives
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Rare Opportunity to own 3 Russell Barlow vintage 1930 - 1940 antique folding pocket knives. · Large knife: 5.25 inches long with one 4 inch blade, bone handle with slight surface cracks · Medium knife: 3.25 inches long with two blades, one 2.5 inches long, the other 2 inches long, bone handle with slight surface cracks · Medium knife: 3.25 inches long with one blade, 2.5 inches long, slight surface cracks in bone handle These knives are in super condition, solid - like new action. History: With its characteristically long bolster, the Barlow folding pocket knife enjoys an unique position in the history of America. No less than Mark Twain referred to a "real Barlow" in his Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in 1876 and the Barlow was common long before that. In an article Little Knife or Big Cannon-All Barlows, which was reprinted in Barlow of Barlow in May 1989 , page 18, Odessa Teagarden said that the "Best known of the Barlow inventions, however, was the Barlow knife, a must in the pocket of every schoolboy of the Nineteenth Century. While the invention has been credited to both Milton and Thomas Barlow, it has also been called the work of Leason Barlow. Records in the United States Patent Office indicate that the latter designed it. It was superior to the cutlery which at that time came mainly from England, and remained a leading seller over a long period." I have been unable to find the patent records that Ms. Teagarden cites and I don't know what kind of a knife that Thomas, Milton or Leason Barlow were involved with in Nicholas County, Kentucky, in the latter part of the eighteenth century. The Barlow knife was designed to be a rugged knife and to be produced at the lowest possible price. To keep costs low, the blade was forged from high carbon steel and the handle was usually bone with little effort spent in polishing or other finishing. To add strength, the bolster was increased in length and weight since that is the point of greatest strain in all folding knives. John Russell is usually credited with being the first American to manufacture Barlow knives, although this is not certain. The John Russell Company, now the Russell Harrington Cutlery Company of Southbridge, Massachusetts, first made Barlow knives at their Greenfield Massachusetts, factory in 1785. They were called the Russell Barlow knife and instead of the word BARLOW on the bolster, they were stamped with Russell's mark, an R with an arrow through it. Today these Russell Barlows are valuable antiques. Up until 1920 the Barlow was the standard pocket knife in the south and middle west, and it became so famous that a columnist with the Louisville, Kentucky, Courier-Journal started a club called the "Barlow Bearcats." T were no dues, duties or obligations; the only requirement of membership was the ownership of a genuine Russell Barlow.
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