A Catalog Reference · the Brown family — the Case dynasty's Olean cousin

Union Cutlery Co. — KA-BAR

Olean, New York · the Brown brothers' cutlery, the Grizzly switchblade, and a mark that dates the maker

Researched & written by Ethan Trex, a lifelong pocket-knife collector. · Reviewed August 2026

✓ Primary — read directly / record checked ~ Corroborated — reliable secondary ⚑ Archival — identified, off-line

A maker's mark again — and the most patents of any brand here

Where the New York Knife Co. and Cattaraugus marks point the wrong way in time, KA-BAR swings back to the Case pattern: first used Jan. 1 1923 by Union Cutlery itself. It carries the richest patent record here — three folding-knife patents, one firmly company-assigned — its flagship pocket knife is a switchblade, and its founders were grandsons of Job R. Case, so it closes the loop back to the Case page. ✓ primary · S1/S2/S4

Union Cutlery was the Brown family's cutlery — a Brown-family node in the Case dynasty — grown from a Tidioute razor shop into an Olean works whose KA-BAR brand became so famous the name went generic (the WWII Marine knife). This entry follows the pre-war Union Cutlery: the family threads that tie it to Case, the loosely-coded number that never reached the blade, the dog's-head folding hunters, and the Grizzly.

Drawing sheet of U.S. Patent 1,701,027, 'Fly-Open Knife,' by R. E. Brown, patented February 5 1929, showing the KA-BAR Grizzly switchblade closed and open with its internal push-button spring mechanism, signed by the inventor. — **A co-founder's own hand — the Grizzly, on a public-domain primary.** U.S. Patent **1,701,027**, “Fly-Open Knife,” filed Jun. 29 1927, **patented Feb. 5 1929** — inventor **Robert E. Brown**, the co-founder (second president). This is the push-button mechanism of the KA-BAR **Grizzly**, the brand's most-prized folder — a switchblade where every other maker's flagship is a slip-joint. ✓ primary · S1

Corporate genealogy — a razor shop that became KA-BAR

1897–1902Tidioute Cutlery Co. (PA) fails; Wallace R. Brown buys the assets (1902) and runs the Union Razor Co. ~ S6
1909Renamed the Union Cutlery Company (still Tidioute, PA). ~ S6
1911Moves to Olean, N.Y. (434 N. Ninth St.) — its home ever since. ~ S6
1916Founder Wallace R. Brown patents a spring blade-lock (U.S. 1,169,000). ✓ primary · S3
1923The “swing-guard” lock patented, assigned to Union Cutlery (U.S. 1,476,123, “Pat'd Dec 4 1923”); and KA-BAR first used (Jan. 1). ✓ primary · S2/S4
1926The “Grizzly” switchblade (No. 2179) introduced — the iconic Ka-Bar folder. ~ S11
1929Co-founder R. Emerson Brown patents the Grizzly's mechanism (U.S. 1,701,027; above). ✓ primary · S1
1942–45WWII: Union Cutlery is one maker of the USMC “KA-BAR” fixed-blade — the name goes generic. ~ S13
1952→Renamed KA-BAR Cutlery, Inc.; later Cole National (1966) → Alcas/Cutco (1996) → today. A continuous brand. ~ S9

The loop closes — the “Magic Circle.” Union Cutlery is a Brown-family node in the Case dynasty: Job R. Case's daughter Emma Case married John Brown, and their sons Wallace R. and R. Emerson Brown built the firm — so the founders were grandsons of Job R. Case, nephews of the four Case brothers. A trusted local history frames the whole world as families — Champlin, Case, Platts, Brown & Burrell — running “no less than 32” cutlery companies over five generations, naming W.R. Case & Sons, Cutco, and KA-BAR as offshoots. ~ S7
Correction carried to the Case page: its old note “Union Cutlery/Ka-Bar (Andrew Case, ~1909)” was wrong — the “~1909” is the Union Razor→Union Cutlery rename, and Andrew Case was only a later minority owner; the real tie is the Brown brothers. Fixed on both pages.

A detective's footnote — the Watson patent, resolved. The “phantom Cattaraugus liner-lock patent,” U.S. 825,093 (1906), flagged as a misattribution on the Cattaraugus page, is William F. Watson's, of Tidioute, Pa. — and the same Watson later moved to Olean and assigned Union Cutlery's 1923 swing-guard patent. So Watson was a real Tidioute→Olean knife-lock cutler tied to this firm, never to Cattaraugus. ✓ S5

The number — coded like Case, but it never reached the blade

Ka-Bar's number is coded handle-first (like Case — fitting the Brown/Case lineage) but with its own material codes. The twist unique to Ka-Bar: it was a catalog reference and was not stamped on the pre-WWII knives at all — you identify a genuine one from the catalog and the name stamp, not a number on the tang.

2 1 79

2 = natural stag 1 = one blade 79 = pattern → No. 2179, the Grizzly switchblade

1st digit = handle material (1 ebony · 2 stag · 3 redwood · 4 white ivory · 5 black celluloid · 6 bone stag · 7 pearl · 9 silver Pyraline · 0 fancy celluloid; letters P/H/T/R) · 2nd digit = blades · rest = pattern. ~ S10

Two cautions. The key is a loose collector reconstruction — sources even disagree on it (5 = black celluloid vs 5 = leather) — and it applies to the folding series only (fixed-blade hunters use a different logic). And “Pyraline” is Ka-Bar's celluloid (cf. DuPont's Pyralin), not Remington's “Pyremite.”

Patterns & the dog's-head shield — a switchblade flagship

Where every other brand's signature folder is a slip-joint, Ka-Bar's is the push-button Grizzly. The emblematic premium line is the dog's-head folding hunters — large stag knives wearing a cast dog's-head handle shield.

Pattern	What it is	Note
2179	“Grizzly” switchblade	the iconic Ka-Bar folder (1926); genuine stag, ~5½″; patent 1,701,027 (plate)
dog's-head	Dog's-head folding hunters	~5¼″, 2-blade, stag; the swing-guard versions use the 1923 patent
Big Daddy Barlow	Ka-Bar's large barlow	NOT “Grand Daddy” (that's Case's term); small ones marked “Ka-Bar-Lo”
TL-29	Electrician's / utility folder	pre-war examples prized (some etched Zane Grey, Abercrombie & Fitch)
USMC 1219C2	the USMC “KA-BAR” — FIXED BLADE, not a folder	the brand's fame; the name went generic; context only

Handles & the dog's-head: genuine stag is the signature of the premium folders; also bone / bone-stag (early “green bone” a pre-war tell), mother-of-pearl, ebony/redwood/cocobolo, and fancy celluloids. The dog's-head shield is a decorative model shield (not a maker's mark): with no name = c.1919–22; with “KA-BAR” on it = 1923–42.

Corrections & a reissue trap. “Baby Ka-Bar” is not a documented pattern (it means the “Baby Grizzly” or a boys' knife). the dog's-head folders have been reissued by several makers — so a modern one isn't one factory's story. The 1977 Ka-Bar Collectors-Club set (serial-numbered, date-stamped “11/77”) was made by Queen Cutlery; the 2011–2016 dog's-head folder revival was made by Canal Street Cutlery of Ellenville, N.Y. (ex-Schrade cutlers) — the “Coppersmith” copper-bolster, reclaimed-American-chestnut, and ram's-horn knives; and KA-BAR Inc.'s own dog's-head fixed blades (e.g. the 1317) are U.S.-made today. Mind the tang trap: a contract shop stamps the brand, not itself — so a Canal Street slip-joint trapper wears a period-style “KA-BAR OLEAN, N.Y.” tang and a dog's-head shield, the same stamp as the 1976 Bicentennial, with no serial and none of the “UNION CUTLERY CO.” line a genuine pre-war Ka-Bar carries (see the dating table above) — the swing-guard models add a “CS” mark, the trappers don't. The reliable modern tell is the handle: reclaimed chestnut, copper, or ram's horn — with 440C steel — is a 21st-century knife, not a pre-war original.

Dating a knife by its tang stamp — KA-BAR present or absent

Ka-Bar has a real, usable chronology (unlike Cattaraugus). The master key is whether “KA-BAR” appears at all: absent → pre-1923; present → 1923+, then the secondary marks narrow it. (Beware the widely-copied Ka-Bar stamp charts — collectors warn they're error-ridden; these are the anchored tells.)

The tang reads…	Date	The tell
UNION CUT. CO. OLEAN N.Y. only — no KA-BAR	1911–1922	the pre-KA-BAR window (KA-BAR's first use is Jan. 1 1923).
KA-BAR (main tang) + UNION CUTLERY CO. OLEAN N.Y. (back)	1923–c.1951	the classic Union-Cutlery-era KA-BAR pocketknife — pre-/through-WWII.
OLCUT (Olean Cutlery — a Union Cutlery sub-brand)	early 1920s–1937	a lighter-duty line; in the 1937 price list, gone by 1938.
KA-BAR / U.S.A. → one-word italic Kabar	late 1940s → 1952+	“U.S.A.”-not-“OLEAN” = late 1940s; one-word “Kabar” = 1952+ (the name change) = NOT pre-war.

The trademark dates the maker. Read from the USPTO: KA-BAR (Reg. 178,082) was first used Jan. 1 1923 by Union Cutlery Co. itself — the Case pattern, the opposite of the revival marks on the New York Knife Co. and Cattaraugus pages. That original registration lapsed in 1986, and modern KA-BAR / dog's-head marks are re-filings by the Cutco/Alcas successors — whose “1975” first-use dates are re-registration artifacts, not the origin of the name (1923) or the shield (~1919). ✓ S4

The name itself? The “kill a bar” story — a trapper's scrawled testimonial read as “kill a bear” — is a company legend; Ka-Bar sources it to a training manual written years later, and no letter survives. The trademark dates are the hard facts. ~ S6

What a knife cost — no digitized period price (like Case)

Honest result, matching the Case, Winchester, and Cattaraugus pages: no digitized, dated period price for a Union Cutlery / Ka-Bar pocket knife could be found. The c.1925 “Ka-Bar Dependable Pocket Knives” catalog survives only as a paper reproduction, and the 1928–1940 Union Cut Co. price lists are privately held. (A recurring trap: the “Union Hardware Co.” catalogs online are a different Torrington, CT firm — reels and skates — not Union Cutlery.) This entry leads with what is provable. ⚑ archival

In period print

Union Cutlery of Olean, N.Y. sold through jobbers and left almost no consumer advertising in the digitized public-domain press — but the record that does survive is the strongest kind: the firm’s own patents and the federal registration of its most famous name. Together they trace the company’s arc from a 1916 lock-blade to the automatic “Grizzly” of 1929. Each document was read in full; all are public-domain U.S. government records.

Patent · 1916

“an improved lock for holding a knife positively open…”

Wallace R. Brown of Olean patents the lock-and-lever folder that would define Union Cutlery’s knives — a single spring that both drives and locks the blade, freed by a thumb lever.

U.S. Patent 1,169,000 — W. R. Brown, Olean, N.Y. · granted Jan. 18, 1916. Google Patents →

Patent · 1923

“a device for securely locking the blade, when the knife is open…”

William F. Watson’s lock-and-guard, assigned to Union Cutlery Co. itself — it both locks the open blade and shapes the catch into a guard for the user’s hand.

U.S. Patent 1,476,123 — assigned to Union Cutlery Co., Olean · granted Dec. 4, 1923. Google Patents →

Trademark · 1924

“Knives … for hunters, fishermen and campers, and pocketknives.”

Union Cutlery Co. registers the KA-BAR name it had begun stamping on Jan. 1, 1923 — the mark that, as the company has long told it, grew from a trapper’s scrawled thanks for a knife he used to “kill a bar.”

U.S. Patent Office — Trademark Reg. No. 178,082, registered Jan. 8, 1924. USPTO record →

Patent · 1929

“Fly-Open Knife.”

Robert E. Brown of Olean patents the spring-driven automatic that snaps open at a press — the mechanism behind Union Cutlery’s KA-BAR “Grizzly” switchblades of the late 1920s.

U.S. Patent 1,701,027 — R. E. Brown, Olean, N.Y. · granted Feb. 5, 1929. Google Patents →

Sources

Primary sources are documents read directly; secondary are reliable leads. Full metadata (identifiers, URLs, quotes) lives in data/kabar.json.

U.S. Patents — 1,701,027 (“Fly-Open Knife,” R.E. Brown, 1929, the Grizzly & plate); 1,476,123 (“Lock and guard,” Watson → Union Cutlery Co., 1923, the swing-guard); 1,169,000 (Wallace R. Brown, 1916); and 825,093 (Watson, 1906, the Watson resolver). Google Patents · PD · opened. ✓ S1–S3, S5
USPTO TSDR — KA-BAR, Reg. 178,082 (Union Cutlery Co., first use Jan. 1 1923). Read directly. ✓ S4
Secondary / leads: KA-BAR's own history (the Brown family, the “kill a bar” legend); Historic Path of Cattaraugus County (the “Magic Circle”); Goins' Encyclopedia of Cutlery Markings (tang dates); AllAboutPocketKnives, BladeForums & officialkabar (numbering, OLCUT, dog's-head, the Grizzly); oldpocketknives; and the archival c.1925 house catalog + 1928–1940 price lists. ~ S6–S14