Posted 5 years ago
Barbiej33
(1 item)
I'm having a very difficult time finding any information as to a general timeframe when these were made. Or any information about them at all really!
Help me date these vintage German Solingen knives! | ||
| Tools and Hardware1776 of 9815 |  |  |
Solingen was almost totally bombed out during the second world war. Along with the buildings and factories most of the records were lost regarding Solingen cutlery. The answer to your question is in the tang stamp. Different design stamps were used during different eras. During the US embargo this type item was smuggled to Austria, Poland etc to get it to the us market. I have passed along all of my Solingen folding knives to my son but had the same problem when I was collecting them. The information is out there but unfortunately when I passed my collection along I deleted the sites I did research on. Knife collector sites and blogs are where I started and things slowly fell into place as others shared links with me. Some are quite valuable and others not so much. You might try to google, Vintage Solingen folding knife tang marks. Many collectors are joining together to share information and building databases of marks they can confirm.
Solingen knives are still being made. It is like Murano glass in Italy, a region known for producing something. I've bought new Solingen marked knives in the last 20 years. Your knife was distributed by the Arnex Company which was active in the 1970s and maybe 1960s and 1980s. They sold mail order watches and knifes made by other companies under their brand name. I bought a Swiss movement Arnex pocket watch from the Arnex catalog around 1974 or 1975. The catalog also had stainless steel knives like yours in various designs. At one time, a couple of years ago, I found quite a bit of information about the Arnex Company using Google. A quick search turned up this blurb:
https://clockhistory.com/0/document-2221-1.html
I found bits and pieces more using Google. Not sure if I kept the information I found before. I know that I posted it on a forum but don't recall which one.
There was another Swiss Arnex Company which was active in the 1920s-1940s that made higher end Swiss watches, but it was defunct before the company that made your knives existed. I don't know if they made anything other than watches. I don't know if the company which was active in the 1970s took the name of the earlier company or if that was a coincidence. I have seen the 1970s watches passed off as being made by this earlier Arnex company but they are not of the same quality. I think the later Arnex company was American, but not positive about that.
There is only one similar knife in this 1973-4 catalog on page 10. My watch is not in this catalog, so it must have been in the next year catalog. As I recall there were several knives in the catalog I ordered from.
https://clockhistory.com/0/document-2221-1.html