Is this a marking knife or ???

[Woody Alan]

Hi

I have acquired this from my Father clearing out his garage. I wonder if someone can tell me a bit more about it please. It's made by a Joseph Rodgers and sons cutlers to his majesty ** sheffield england on the other side of blade. I am curious to know what it's intended purpose was/is if I need to take immediate care because there is some value or whether to just enjoy a nicely made tool and use it for marking.

Cheers Alan

 

[mahking51]

Alan,
Interesting item, I had to research a large early knife the other day and got a lot of help here from the Bernard Levine forum:
http://www.bladeforums.com/
Hope it helps.
Martin

 

[bugbear]

Hi

I have acquired this from my Father clearing out his garage. I wonder if someone can tell me a bit more about it please. It's made by a Joseph Rodgers and sons cutlers to his majesty ** sheffield england on the other side of blade. I am curious to know what it's intended purpose was/is if I need to take immediate care because there is some value or whether to just enjoy a nicely made tool and use it for marking.

Cheers Alan

I think it's a erasing knife, for cutting inked errors from paper.

http://cgi.ebay.com/INK-ERASING-KNIFE_W ... dZViewItem
http://www.coe.uh.edu/special_projects/ ... making.cfm
http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/tools/errors.htm

BugBear (who has a lesser one, and converted it to a marking knife)

 

[Woody Alan]

Hi

I wasn't expecting such fast replies, thanks. Thanks for the forum link Martin I'll have to tackle that later today. Bugbear what a fascinating thought that it could be used for such a purpose, it is rather finely made. How my Dad would have had such an item is strange. His Dad was a blacksmith and did acquire some odd woodworking tools from somewhere, and I am fairly sure it would have come from him, but why such a thing as this who knows.

Cheers Alan

 

[Paul Chapman]

I think it's a erasing knife, for cutting inked errors from paper.

I can remember this being a common way of correcting errors at work back in the 1960s before the introduction of Snopake and Tippex.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[OLD]

Looks similar to letter opening knife used on british rail years ago .
The ink eraser was used in a scraping action usually sharpened on both edges of one side and to a point and used on drafting film to scrape your mistakes away called a lance eraser mounted in a pen so quite small.

 

[MrJay]

It might be worth noting, before you take it to the grinder, that Joseph Rodgers is rather posh as knives go.

 

[chunkolini]

It looks like a Beautiful Old Thing.

Dont modify it. Either keep it as a 'BOT' in honour of your Pa or sell it to somebody who will appreciate it as a 'BOT' who knows they may even use it for it's original purpose.

Chunko'

I can reccomend using the well known internet auction house as a tester, give it a high reserve price and see what happens.

 

[bugbear]

more...

http://www.loringpage.com/pens/cat01d.htm
(search for eraser)

BugBear

 

[Paul Kierstead]

I can remember this being a common way of correcting errors at work back in the 1960s before the introduction of Snopake and Tippex.

My girlfriend, born in 1980, was brought up (eastern europe) correcting homework errors this way; all work was expected to be done in ink, and they certainly didn't have liquid paper or the like (not to mention it probably would not have been acceptable in any case). She used a razor blade, the double edged sort, still has bad memories of trying to handle one of those...

 

[Woody Alan]

Bugbear

Thanks for the links, it would appear from those that it is really more of a quill knife due to the angle ground on the top of the blade which was probably used for cleaning the fluffy bits off the quill. I wouldn't have had any idea without your help thanks. I still haven't found out if it's particularly valuable, but I'm not sure I'm too worried, it is easy to get carried away with a value which doesn't mean much unless it is an intention to sell to specifically make a profit. I think I will go ahead and sharpen it to use as a fine marker and at least it will get used once or twice a year Better to use it instead of hiding it away somewhere. Showing once again what a mine of information the collective have available.

Cheers Alan

 

[lurker]

The metal portion is exactly like an "old fashioned" one piece scapel.

If fact I have several of these (scapels) somewhere and the picture has given me an idea!

 

[lurker]

Sorry!! spelling: scalpel

 

[johnemtee]

Certainly not a marking knife.
A marking knife is usually sharpened on one side only.