Foster Brothers knife, help Identifying pattern and vintage

I just acquired this large Foster Brothers knife. looking for help identifying the original design/pattern as well as the stamp and establish a rough date on it. i have not found any similar pieces or any knives with identical stamps anywhere online. thanks for helping.

That thing is pretty cool. Probably some sort of butchers knife I would guess. No clue on age, but it looks like a good knife. where did you get it?

looks kind of like a sugar beet harvesting knife. I'm thinking some kind of harvesting knife anyway. Cabbage, rhubarb, sugar beets etc.

Thanks for chiming in you guys! I got it off ebay for cheap, from a seller in Illinois. No info was listed. My thoughts are that it is some sort of butcher knife or slicer, but i don't know much about these so anyone's guess is as good as mine.

it is in pretty decent shape with a nice patina and minimal pitting. i'm going to do a light cleaning on it, and true up the edge and sharpen, but other than that leave it pretty much as is. I have some nice walnut burl i will be putting on it for scales. i'll post some photos after i'm done

produce knife for cutting things like cabbage and vegetables

You just got your answer. Son is our resident expert on knives such as this. Not a bad cook either...:cool2:

I'm gonna respectfully disagree. I think the stock looks too thick for use in cultivation. I think it's a butcher's implement.
Here's a more modern Foster Bros. of this pattern with "Gloekler" on the handle. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Ant...-Skinner-Splitter-Knife-Cleaver-/121911714956
Bernard Gloekler Co. was well known for selling butcher's equipment.
-Mark

PolishAvenger said:

I'm gonna respectfully disagree. I think the stock looks too thick for use in cultivation. I think it's a butcher's implement.
Here's a more modern Foster Bros. of this pattern with "Gloekler" on the handle. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Ant...-Skinner-Splitter-Knife-Cleaver-/121911714956
Bernard Gloekler Co. was well known for selling butcher's equipment.
-Mark

Click to expand...

I dunno, the seller in that listing states in the description that they don't actually know what it's for...

I have yet to see a Foster Bros. marked beet knife, cane knife, or any other harvesting blade.
This site was put together by a guy whose relatives worked for Foster Bros. http://www.sotherden.net/fosterbrothersindex.htm Not a mention of agricultural knives whatsoever. There are a few pics of the pattern in question, so I popped off an email to him to ask the pattern name or number....hopefully he's still alive and email works.
-Mark

PolishAvenger said:

I have yet to see a Foster Bros. marked beet knife, cane knife, or any other harvesting blade.
This site was put together by a guy whose relatives worked for Foster Bros. http://www.sotherden.net/fosterbrothersindex.htm Not a mention of agricultural knives whatsoever. There are a few pics of the pattern in question, so I popped off an email to him to ask the pattern name or number....hopefully he's still alive and email works.
-Mark

Click to expand...

I have no problem s with that, I'm always up for learning new things. Many makers had the same pattern but, marketed them for different purposes. When I worked on the farm as kid, this pattern of knife we used for cabbages and beets and such and it was think and heavy. When I got older I worked in a grocery store in the produce Dept and we used the same patterned knife only made of thinner stock with a white handle . it may have been a Dexter. Any way it could very well be used for something else such as butchering but we used it in the field.

I'm with sachem on that. Many years ago I lived in the Puyallup valley when it was still truck farms you could go into the local Ag supply store and see one box of knives marked "cabbage knives" and a box next to it of a knife that looked exactly the same marked "rhubarb knives." And I'm betting the cabbage farmers never bought rhubarb knives to harvest their crops.

I dig that completely, guys, but because I've used my Spyderco to cut steak, that doesn't make it a steak knife. The OP says "looking for help identifying the original design/pattern", and while my 1924 Marshall Wells catalog has a similar pattern listed as a cheese knife, and Dexter still sells this pattern as a cheese knife, I'd like to be able to say precisely what use Foster Bros INTENDED this knife.
-Mark

Maybe I'm wrong but your photos it looks like that knife has a very thick spine? Cheese knives tend to be fairly thin. I'm guessing what ever it was originally intended for it involved chopping on something.

Maybe you have already found it but there is a collector website devoted to Foster Brothers that shows several knives of this style but it really doesn't give any information on them.

Cheese knife size 10 & 12" blades options. I see them pictured in my 1905 hardware catalog. I assume they were sold to general stores to cut hunks off of cheese wheels