Remington Knife

The company that began manufacturing knives branded “Remington” in 1920 started about a century before, when Eliphalet Remington forged his first gun barrel in Ilion Gulch, New York, in 1816. The young company’s rifles proved a success, and E. Remington & Sons grew steadily, soon moving to Remington’s present firearms manufacturing location near what was the a newly constructed Erie Canal.

Independently, in 1860, Marcellus Hartley founded the Schuyler, Harley & Graham Sporting goods Company, which would go on to become one of the world’s largest. Diversifying a few years later, Schuyler, Hartley &Graham purchased two small firearms cartridge companies, which it consolidated and moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1867, naming the new company Union Metallic Cartridge Co. In 1888, Marcellus Hartley and partners purchased E. Remington & Sons and renamed it Remington Arms Company.

Years later, in 1912, Marcellus Hartley Dodge became chief executive of both Remington Arms Company and Union Metallic Cartridge Company, and combined the two into one company to become Remington U.M.C. thus the reason knife collectors still find the initials “UMC” stamped along with the name “Remington” on knives, and sportsmen will find a “U’ stamped on rim fire cartridges made by the company.

Remington prospered during the early part of the 20th century but at the end of World War I, found itself with extensive manufacturing facilities and without government contracts to keep busy. The relatively new Bridgeport, Connecticut, factory was near idle and management knew that cutlery manufacture was not an entirely new endeavor since Remington had made a large number of bayonets beginning about 1915. A decision was made to enter the cutlery field, and Remington’s first pocketknives (R-103) were made in February 1920.

The manufacture of pocketknives got quickly underway and, by 1921, over 2,000 dealers sold Remington knives in most parts of the country. Further expansion came during the 1920’s and, by 1931; Remington was producing almost 3 million knives per year in as many as 1,000 patterns.

Near the end of 1922, the company announced the first “Bullets”, large trappers or folding hunters with a nickel silver shield in the shape of a.30 caliber U.S. Government 1903 cartridge and a dozen different knives of this high-quality line been produced by the end of the decade. Further success came in 1923 with Remington’s production of the Official Boy Scout Knife, the RS3333 pattern with an official BSA shield. By 1925, the number of patterns produced approached 1,000 and fixed blade or sheath knives were added to the line. Quality remained high, as did production: the Bridgeport factory made 10,000 knives per day at the beginning of the 1930’s. But the Great Depression took its toll and the failure of a large number of Remington distributors and dealers brought financial difficulty to the manufacture.

In 1933, controlling interest in the company was sold to E. I. DuPont Company. The number of knife patterns was reduced to about a third of their earlier number by 1936 and with this reduction in knife selections came a reduction in quality and some of those patterns were made under contract. The 1940 announcement of Remington’s revival of military small arms production was in keeping with the rumored $2 million loss of its cutlery division. The company’s cutlery equipment, existing parts and supplies were sold in their entirety to the Pal Blade Company.

Remington made several million knives during its initial twenty-year production period and those numbers could make one wonder why the brand is considered rare and is so popular with collectors. But, these were knives that were highly advertised, widely distributed, easily sold and faithfully used in all parts of the country. Finding an original Remington knife today may not be really difficult, but one found in mint condition is a prized possession, especially one of the rarer patterns. There has probably been no other knife type, manufactured in reasonably large quantities that can approach the “Remington Bullet” in collector demand.

Modern Remington Knives

During the 1970’s, Remington granted permission for others to produce “authorized reproductions” of the famed bullet patterns. Interest in these led to Remington’s introduction of its own Bullet knife in 1982, and a series of annual knives quickly appeared to meet an intense demand from collectors. These reproductions “Bullet” and related knives have their own following in today’s knife market.

The success of the Bullet series has since led to a diverse line of current Remington knife offerings made in America and overseas, from modern working knives to traditional collectibles and everything in between.

The Dagger of Admiral d’Estaing

In the chapter on the 1900’s in his monumental work Cutlery from its Origins to the Present Day, Camille Page writes: “Estaing knives: knives with this name were designed in 1780 by Admiral Estaing for use on board his ship. These knives can be used for dining, for cutting or for defense. There is some doubt though as to the true origins of this highly original knife that is no more no less than a straight folding knife. A first of its kind since up until then knives had been either straight or folding, but certainly never both at the same time. But let us attempt to penetrate the veil of mystery by exploring the legend of this unusual character.

Born in the castle of ravel (Puy-de-Dome) in 1729, Count Charles Henri d’Estaing joined the military establishment at a very young age. Musketeer to the king in 1738, aide-de-camp of the Marechal de Saxe in 1742, he was promoted to Captain in the Rouergue regiment in 1745 at just fifteen years old. Wounded for the first time during the War of Flanders, he was promoted to major in 1747 and two years later became ambassador’s secretary to the English Court. Soon he was in America, followed by the West Indies and Pondicherry. He participated in the taking of Madras (during which he was again wounded) and then went to Reunion. Appointed governor of the Leeward Islands, then vice admiral of the seas of Asia and Africa. He played a heroic part in the American War of Independence, took Grenada in 1779 and was wounded once more in Savannah. Appointed governor of Touraine, he became commander of the French National Guard in that terrible year of 1789 (The French Revolution), before finally being promoted admiral of France in 1794. However, he was arrested on the 28^th of April of the same year during the Great Terror and guillotined, despite his republican and avant-garde convictions.

Estaing sailed all over the world and was clearly a man whose sixty-five years of life were amply filled. He was curious about everything. How could one not be I this century of Enlightenment that saw such illustrious names as Diderot, Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Bach, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. A freemason, interested in both symbolism and the hidden side of things, it was clear that not just any knife would do for this man. The original model has never been found, and we have no detailed description of it. However we can get quite precise idea from the two models from this era exhibited in the Cutlery Museum of Thiers. One is composed of a long blade with an ivory handle that swivels on an axis partially fold over this blade. The handle of the second model does not pivot; instead the blade slides partially into the handle, enabling it to be used in the position required. Why such s particularity? Well, certainly for the simple pleasure and originality of it, but also for convenience. This knife enables one to carve a superb leg of lamb before sitting down at a table to consume it, after having folded the blade back down to a manageable size. It makes for easier carrying, enabling one to have an effective weapon for self defense since the admiral was rarely far from the front line.

But was such a mechanism the fruit of his own imagination? Or did “secret” knives inspire it? Or from “butterfly” models seen in the West Indies during one of his voyages? Or else from knives seen in London or America? Unfortunately, Admiral Estaing took his secret with him to his grave.

The ingenuity of such a system certainly did not escape the notice of the cutlers of Thiers, which was not far from the admiral’s estate. They modernized this knife to make it suitable for hunting, and today this is a particularly popular model.