ROGERS BONE (c)1987 | WINTERBOTTOM BONE (c)1990 by BERNARD LEVINE * BOX 2404 * EUGENE OR 97402 * 541-484-0294 KNIFE WORLD * PO BOX 3395 * KNOXVILLE TN 37927 WHUT IZZIT NUMBER 119 NOVEMBER 1987 Rogers bone was made by the Rogers Manufacturing Company of Rockfall, Connecticut. On the telephone I interviewed Mr. Vincent Bitel, Senior, president of the Rogers Manufacturing Company, and his son, Mr. Vincent Bitel, Junior. Mr. Bitel, Senior, informed me that the firm started in business in 1891, making manufactured bone products, and also bone fertilizer. They began to make jigged bone pocketknife scales around the turn of the century. Other manufactured bone products included combs, toothbrush handles, baby pacifiers, and one of their biggest sellers, corn-cob pipe bits. This particular item was discontinued in the 1950s. Early in the century, one of this firm's competitors in the bone business was Rogers & Hubbard. About the time of the First World War, Rogers Mfg. Co. traded its bone fertilizer operation to Rogers & Hubbard, and received in return the other firm's manufactured bone products business. From that time forward, Rogers Mfg. Co. was the nation's largest maker of manufactured bone products. At first, all of the bone used by Rogers Mfg. Co. came from domestic cattle. By the 1920s, and perhaps even earlier, all of it was coming from overseas, mainly from Argentina. Most of Rogers's pocketknife handle material was made in the distinctive jigging pattern that collectors call "Rogers bone," but that the firm in fact called "Rogers Stag." Rogers Stag was made using a specially designed jigging machine which the company still has, but that has not been used since 1962 (they have no interest in starting it up again). They also made small quantities of other styles of jigged bone for pocketknives. Rogers Mfg. Co. also made jigged bone for hunting knives and for kitchen utensils. For hunting knives, they made a style of jigging they called "Indian Trail." This is a long random "worm" style of jigging. Their biggest customer for bone kitchen utensil handles was Landers Frary & Clark, who used the bone mainly on kitchen forks. During the Second World War, Rogers's production of jigged bone handles continued without interruption. Many of those handles wound up on cutlery items made for the government. The bone used by Rogers during the war was all imported. It came from Argentina, Brazil, and a new source: Australia. The Australian bone came mainly from old (15+ years old) tough range cattle, and so was very thick and dense and strong. This heavy Australian bone was used mainly for hunting knife handles. In the 1950s, cost-conscious cutlery manufacturers began to discontinue the production of bone handled pocketknives. Rogers Mfg. Co. changed with the changing times, and began to offer synthetic pocketknife handles. Mr. Bitel, who started with Rogers in 1955, was involved in the transition. He states that Rogers Mfg. Co. was the first firm to produce pocketknife scales made out of Delrin (a DuPont acetal resin). One trademark Rogers used for synthetic handle materials was Romco. Rogers Mfg. Co. last sold bone pocketknife handle material in 1962. The firm still supplies limited quantities of synthetic handle material to the cutlery industry, but domestic and foreign competitors have taken most of that specialized business away. ****** KNIFE LORE NUMBER 20 MARCH 1990 BERNARD LEVINE'S KNIFE LORE (c)1990 Bernard Levine, exclusive to the NKCA WINTERBOTTOM BONE Some time ago I received an interesting packet of information from Steve Deer of Indiana. He used to collect Queen Cutlery Co. knives, and one of the distinctive features of many Queens is their "Winterbottom Bone" handles -- called by Queen, "genuine Frontier bone stag." He discovered that Winterbottom bone was made in Egg Harbor, New Jersey, at the eastern edge of the Pine Barrens. PHOTO CAPTION Queen #60 barlows with Winterbottom bone. Note the long continuous grooves. The Egg Harbor Public Library put Mr. Deer in touch with Ivor Winterbottom, the oldest grandson of Samuel Winterbottom, founder of Winterbottom Cutlery Works, and the last Winterbottom to be connected with the firm. In the packet he sent me, Mr. Deer included an August 8, 1983, letter to him from Ivor Winterbottom. Some excerpts: "A thumbnail history would start somewhere about 1885 when Samuel Winterbottom left Sheffield for Philadelphia, leaving his wife and three children behind. Sam's first job was peddling window glass in the streets and glazing windows. One of his fellow peddlers [supposedly] was Henry Disston, who was selling saws from a wheelbarrow. In later years they joined forces and made special circular saws for cutting bone. Some time before 1890, Samuel Winterbottom moved to Egg Harbor City, New Jersey, and sent for his family. "In 1890 he set up his first shop ... Winterbottom Carter. S.W. was the craftsman, Carter the desk man (book keeping). As time passed, Samuel's four sons entered the business: Harry, Jack, Ernest, and Fred (born in the U.S.). "When the U.S. entered World War I [April 1917], the factory began making handles for knives and bayonets. Carter, being of Quaker belief, would have nothing to do with war materials and left the company. Up to this time, most of the work was done by hand. Orders were so heavy the brothers designed and hand built machines that kept 125 men working six days a week. After the war, the brothers continued to make handles from bone, wood, celluloid, and other materials for almost everyone in the cutlery industry. ... Some of our customers I can remember were Schatt & Morgan (before 1920), Queen, Imperial, Camillus, Cattaraugus, and Ka-Bar. There were 10 or 12 more, but I can't think of them right now. PICTURE CAPTION Winterbottom Cutlery Works, Egg Harbor City, New Jersey, 1925. "The first [bone] stag of the [Winterbottom] type came to life during this period. It was all done by hand, and I had many blisters to prove it. Fred decided we had to have a machine to do this job. As you know, every piece of real deer-horn stag is different. To make a machine that would make different patterns was quite a chore. "Finally it was made, and we thought we had the industry sewed up. But some fellow smarter than we were bought up some knives [with our handles], pulled off the handles, made molds, and cast [copies of] our handles in plastic. This, combined with U.S. Department of Agriculture restrictions on foreign bone, and with a Brazilian embargo on rosewood, made things so expensive, that [our operation] could no longer survive. In 1968 I sold the business to one of our customers, who makes wood and plastic handles for their own use." A biography of Samuel Winterbottom in the 1924 volume, South Jersey -- A History, provides a little more accurate information on the early history of the Winterbottom family and firm. "John Winterbottom, Mr. Winterbottom's father, was born and died in Sheffield, England, and was a bone-cutter by occupation, his trade linking his name with the world famous cutlery manufacturers of that city. The family had followed similar lines of activity in England for 130 years. ... "Samuel Winterbottom was born in 1857 ... and early in life became employed as a bone-cutter and manufacturer of handles of all kinds for knives, in association with his father." According to this book, Samuel worked in the paper industry in Philadelphia, Valley Forge, and Egg Harbor until 1891, when he set up in the handle and novelty business. He started with one employee. A year later he had four, and moved to a larger building. By 1924 Samuel Winterbottom had 100 people on his company's payroll. Amber and tortoiseshell handles were a specialty. His eldest son, Harry, born in Sheffield in 1880, was then the firm's business manager. His second son, John, born in 1885, was factory superintendent. His third son, Ernest, born in 1886, and his youngest, Frederick, born in New Jersey in 1898, were both factory foremen. ***** http://www.knife-expert.com/