Oddball Handle On Osborne Round Knife

[J Hayes]

Picked up on eBay, handle is different than any on a knife that I've see. Looks like an edger handle. Anyone seen one like this? Blade is 4 5/8" tip to tip.

[bruce johnson]

Osborne made round handle knives. They have historically been priced less than the oval handle knives.

[J Hayes]

Thanks Bruce, do you know if its the same steel and just a cheap handle? Do you know an approximate age? The fit of the handle is sloppy and the ferrule is steel, I like the size of the blade though, hopefully it'll keep an edge.

[bruce johnson]

The steel ferrule and handle material look more recent to me. Hard to pinpoint a timeframe for me on that one. Sloppy fit? That tells me recent. My impression on some of these is that the blade material tended to be thinner and maybe a little softer. Some blades will actually flex a bit.

[Trox]

Hi Hayes and Bruce,

I have one just like it with the Newark stamp on it, that makes it old does it not. Same handle and ferule but no sloppy fit. The blade feels a bit thinner than the OSB (Newark) rosewood and brass knifes, and the blade flexes allot.

So I measured it; its 1,5 mm the same as my bigger rosewood and brass OSB knifes. The reason it feels thinner and flex more is because the blade is narrower where it goes up in the shaft. The steel will not get as sharp as the more expensive knifes. I do not like to use mine because of the flexing blade, so I cant tell you how it keeps an edge.

Thanks

Tor

[bruce johnson]

Tor, The Newark stamp will make yours an oldie for sure. I have had some of the round handles that had a rosewood looking handle and some with a hardwood handle. Most of the older ones were pretty tight. The varnish is still pretty shiny on this one, so it may just have been never handled much. I got one a while back with a similar handle finish and it had the receipts for some of the tools all from the 1950s. A little spit and rub on the maker marking will help date it. One of my friends likes the blades that flex. Whenever I get a few together I send them over to him.

[J Hayes]

Tor that's pretty interesting you have one marked Newark with the round handle, happen to know if yous is Rosewood? My handle is just hardwood.

Bruce, here's some spit and polish on the maker's mark.

The knife sharppened up nicely, hopefully it'll hold an edge, I currently only have a new CSO to compare it with so....

[Trox]

Hi Hayes,

mine is exactly like yours but have a Newark stamp on it. The handle is not rosewood but some kind of hardwood with stain on. The stamp is not as visible as yours anymore, but its a CS Osborne Newark stamp on it. When I wrote the larger OSB rosewood and brass knifes was the same blade thickness, I forgot to mention they are ticker where it goes up in the handle: approx 2 mm. Here are some pictures of it. The steel are not bad, but not of the same quality as the rosewood more expensive knifes.

Tor

[Trox]

HI Bruce,

yes mine has such varnish on the handle too. I remember I wrote to ask you about it a couple years ago when I found it on EBay. I think this was one of Al Stholmans favorites too, he write about it in his book the "Leather craft tools". Where he name it as a 4 1/2" head knife. He preferred using it because of the angle of the tips and its small size. I would not agree with him in calling it a head knife, the typical European head knife is smaller and have a 180 degree blade and have a very long handle (see pic of J Dixon tools for example). The tips on this OSB is slightly leaning backward more than 180 degrees, that makes a small round knifes does it not. The blade shape is very similar to my latest favorite user; a HF Osborne. But that has a much thicker blade and a wide short rosewood handle, a very well made knife. No flex in this knife.

On to something else.

I bought a pretty rare Dixon screw plough gauge on British Ebay that I am very exited about. Its still in the post but I cannot wait to compare it to yours. Its has some small differences from the one you have on your site, different locking of the long screw. It look exactly as the one in pictured in page 277 in the book of R Salaman "Dictionary of leather working tools........"(Ward and Payne catalog of Dixon tools). It has a dark patina but looks to be a nice tool after refurbishing; I hope I am right about that ( I think so). I will show it to you here when I get it. Sorry for the of topic.

Thanks

Tor

[Tannin]

$_3.jpeg

...handle is different than any on a knife that I've see. Looks like an edger handle. Anyone seen one like this? Blade is 4 5/8" tip to tip.

The English-made Joseph Dixon round knives, etc. have round handles like that -- and yes, several of them do look like the handles used on their edge shaves:

http://www.josephdixon.co.uk/products/Saddlers_Tooling/Knives.html

http://www.josephdixon.co.uk/products/Saddlers_Tooling/Edge_Tools.html?pmode=2