northfield knife and roller setting gauges

Thus knives were made with both the Northfield and Excelsior stamps after the two cutleries merged into one. To me this adds some debate as to whether your Excelsior knife was made 1881-1884 or perhaps abit later at the Northfield site which basically continued with this stamp until approximately 1904 (and a few small variations of it – see Goins for details). Northfield even used the blades (nothing was wasted in that day) from Excelsior for a period of time, and blades were still marked Excelsior Knife Co by Northfield. Accordingly Northfield Knife Co moved all the Excelsior equipment to the Northfield cutlery site where it was incorporated into the Northfield factory works. Unfortunately Excelsior Knife Co was having financial woes after a short lived existence though their knives were indeed of nice quality. All these CT cutleries were in existence from the mid-1800s to about 1920-30 (in fact over 85 cutleries existed back in the 19th and early 20th century in CT)… Northfield Knife Co (UN-X-LD – a trademark adopted in 1876 but not on all their knives) was one of the early cutleries in CT (1858-1919) and actually bought at auction the Excelsior Knife Co which only existed from 1880-1884 in nearby Torrington CT. This was for me pretty cool – bringing the original knives back to the site in which they were made over 100 years ago and shooting photos of them at their birthplace … That is what I am calling the “money” shot … A mortice that was originally chiseled out by hand to hold the anvils for hand forging.

I know Joe has posted some photos of the area in the past but wanted to share photos of our trip there – but also as you will see I took photos of some of our old Northfield and Excelsior knives on one of the only upright mortices left on the remains of what was no doubt a very old quality knife factory. No doubt we had a great time - Joe brought his old book that had photos of the original factory – see below and this gave some orientation as to where we were stepping on the foot steps of those old day workers and cutlers… way too cool – like Disney Land for folks who like old knives and history For those not familiar with CT, Northfield and the surrounding area which lays within the “Naugatuck Valley” was the location of multiple early CT makers – Northfield, Excelsior but also Thomaston, American Knife Plymouth, Conn Cutlery, Union Knife Co, etc…. Recently I had the great pleasure as an invite from my good friend Joe (FRJ) to visit the remains of the old Northfield Knife Co site in Northfield CT.

Northfield knife and roller setting gauges