1960 Ad

Then and now.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/133472636073

Someone missed an investment opportunity back in ancient times

I sure remember those ads!
I always thought Herter’s used the phrase “worlds finest” a magnatude more than anyone else!

Kind of reminds me of the ads from these folks.

It is hard to understand how much better the knife market is today, than it was prior to the internet. You found out these custom knife makers through advertisements in major gun, hunting and fishing magazines.

One of these early Buck knives is very valuable today.





Many of the ads were like this Runa ad, you sent money for a cataloge.





There was very limited information on custom knife makers and their products. And their products were much more expensive, say ten times more expensive, than a commercial knife. You could, and did, get a better knife. Commercial knife manufacturer’s were not innovative, new models rare to non existent, because they were being run by white collar Harvard Business school type grads. These guys are taught that there are no differences between managing a computer chip company and a potato chip company, as “chips are chips”. As such, the Harvard MBA types don’t know, and don’t care about the product and tend to keep the product line same old, same old. The buyer had no idea about product differentiation based around steels. Knives on the market at time were predominantly described as being made from “Solingen” carbon steels, and if stainless, that was typically described as “surgical steel”. Brands had meaningless brand specific steel names such as Queen Steel. I think now, the steel is 440 A not 440 C. But it could have been 420.



The consumer was deliberately kept ignorant to the maximum extent as that lead to irrational choices and wasteful spending.

Morseth did make thicker knives than what you could buy at K Mart or the Hardware store, a Morseth blade was 3/16” think, whereas the typical commercial knife was about 1/8”. You could pay more for a selection of guards, handle materials, buttcaps, etc. The big selling point was the laminated high carbon steel, but just what the composition of that steel was never mentioned. It could be the center section is 1070 , 1080, I don’t think it is 1095. For the time, a laminated steel blade was exotic in the United States. Morseth promoted the tapered tang as being stronger than the typical tang, and lighter than a full tang.






Morseth made some very good and useful designs. I started buying Morseth from AG Russell in the 1970’s, and AG was so bad ordered, it took two years from order placement to delievery. That was a bugger. I don’t have any original Morseth catalogs and I do not know all the models that Harry Morseth, nor his son offered, prior to the AG Russell period.



AG Russell put this out, in his newsletter, in 2013



Harry Morseth began making knives by hand around 1925 using A-2 tool steel that he shaped, ground and heat-treated himself. Shortly after World War II he traveled to his father's native Norway and bought a thousand rough ground, laminated blades. Harry finish ground those blades and turned them into handmade knives. They were heat-treated to 60+ Rc. and held an edge to such a remarkable degree that Harry built a reputation that kept he and his wife (she laced the sheaths) busy until their deaths in old age. Knives made using the Morseth® Laminated Steel, including those made in the A. G. Russell™ shop, sell in the secondary market today at high prices. They are still in demand.

After Harry died in 1967, his grandson Steve ran the business unsuccessfully. By the Christmas season of 1970, Steve was in deep trouble. He called and asked if I would be interested in owning the company. I met with his father, Gordon Morseth, who owned the company, and bought it. We moved the shop to Springdale, Arkansas in 1971.

That line of knives, using the same laminated steel, was an important part of our business until we ran low on the laminated steel blade blanks about 10 years ago. When we tried to order more, the European steel mill which had made the steel for years would no longer make the non-stainless steel for us. We have tried for years to replicate that laminated steel. We tried in France, Germany and Japan and failed everywhere.

Goldie and I decided that instead of allowing the fine old name of Morseth® Knives to die, we would switch to a high-end modern steel and focus on making narrow tang knives with unusual handles like the African Ironwood in this first production run. This was a test run which resulted in the lengthening of the handle on models 2 and 15. We made these first knives using Crucible's 154-CM stainless which I purchased years ago.

These knives are handmade in our shop using all possible modern techniques such as outside water jet to cut the blades instead of band sawing, CNC grinders to rough grind the blades, and EDM to precisely fit the guards instead of hand filing - cutting belt costs and our knifemaker's time. These cost savings help keep the retail prices reasonable.

I think this is an original Harry Morseth design




This could be




this was an AG Russell design





and so are these.





The safety sheath was gone during the AR Russell era. These Morseth knives seem to mainly attractive aging boomers who remember that era, wanted the Morseth in the magazine, but could not afford one. Now they can. Morseth knives, by today’s standards, are very lightly constructed as the WW2 generation carried their gear. ATV’s had not been invented yet, you walked into the woods with what you needed in your back pack. Lightness is a premium if you are carrying that weight. These knives were designed to be rugged for the weight, which makes them inadequate for chopping trees and surviving zombie apocalypse, activities which all the cool kids excel. Today the number of massive and fearful “tactical” knives far exceeds the hunting models of yore. Morseth did make a seven inch bladed knife that could be optioned out as a “fighting knife”, the model was called the Morseth Hunter. That was the largest knife Harry Morseth and AG Russell made. It is very light by today's standards.

I found the laminated blades lost their beautiful finish quickly as they are, plain carbon steel. At least AG tried to keep up with steel technology. Paradoxically, the modern, 154CM AG Russell bladed Morseth knives are rarer, but bring less money at auction sites. Boomers pay for the nostalgia.

Slamfire said:

Brands had meaningless brand specific steel names such as Queen Steel.

Click to expand...

In general I agree, but in the specific case of Queen Cutlery, there is a history which makes the branding meaningful:

It is important to note that Queen City Cutlery was an innovator and a pioneer in the use of functional stainless steel in pocket cutlery in America . (Stainless is defined as having at least 11% chromium in the alloy.) As early as 1926 Queen City Cutlery was listed in the regional trade publications as manufacturers of “High Grade Stainless Steel Cutlery.” Stainless steel had been introduced in England in 1914 and first patented in America in 1915, but the change in blade material was initially opposed by many cutlers as often happens when new technologies are introduced into an existing field. Queen was the primary innovator of this change from carbon steel to a stainless steel formulation that was well suited for blades and backsprings. Queen was the first American cutlery company to successfully introduce a large variety of stainless steel cutlery to the market. The first nickel-chromium steel produced in America was made in Titusville at the Cyclops Steel Company under the leadership of Cyclops’ chief metallurgist Charles Evans in 1917. Queen’s willingness to experiment and to push the limits of cutlery steel was also in evidence in 1999 when they began to use ATS-34 steel on master blades, and again in 2002 when they began using both D-2 and 420HC steels for blades.

Click to expand...

From https://www.allaboutpocketknives.co...reference-guide/the-history-of-queen-cutlery/

Edit: Queen Cutlery, Titusville PA, 1903-2017 R.I.P.