A Catalog Reference · the own-brand maker — Camillus's twin, inverted

Robeson Cutlery Co.

Rochester & Perry, New York · Millard Robeson's import house turned own-brand maker — the ShurEdge mark, the PocketEze construction, and a brand you date by its coined stamp

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

Camillus's twin, inverted

If Camillus was the ghost-maker, Robeson is its mirror image. It too began as an import house — Millard Robeson carried Sheffield and Solingen knives under his own name from the 1870s — and pivoted to manufacture, first by leasing the very same Camillus factory Kastor would buy years later. But where Camillus hid behind other names, Robeson built a celebrated own-brand: the coined ShurEdge mark and the PocketEze construction — a signature you can see on the closed knife. Its identity is a construction feature and a coined word, and that coined word is how you date it — even though, like Schrade, no maker-era trademark survives. ✓ primary · S1/S3

This entry follows the pre-war Robeson: the import-to-manufacture pivot and its Camillus tie, the ShurEdge/PocketEze own-brand, the number stamped on the knife, and how you date one by a coined mark whose registration you cannot find. Keep it clear of two successors — the post-1965 Ontario Knife Co. Robesons and the 1990s Queen revival PocketEze pieces.

Drawing sheet of U.S. Patent 1,186,693, 'Knife-Handle and Method of Making the Same,' by Siggins and Cooper, assigned to Robeson Cutlery Co., patented June 13 1916, showing a closed pocket knife with an embossed imitation-bone composition handle. — **A Robeson-assigned primary — and the date on the tang.** U.S. Patent **1,186,693** (with its companion **1,186,692**), “Knife-Handle,” Isac P. Siggins & James E. Cooper, **assignors to Robeson Cutlery Company, of Perry, N.Y.**, **patented June 13 1916** — an embossed compressed-fiber handle imitating stag/bone, fixed to the frame without rivets or pins. That grant date is stamped on Robeson tangs. (It patents the *handle*, not the PocketEze blade construction — which was a trademark, never patented.) ✓ primary · S1/S2

Corporate genealogy — an import house that built a brand

1847Millard Fillmore Robeson born in Farmersville, Cattaraugus County — the same county that seeded the Case dynasty. ~ S6
late 1870sA traveling salesman begins carrying imported Sheffield & Solingen pocket knives under his own name — the import-first origin. ~ S6
1879Founds the cutlery jobbing firm from his home in Elmira, N.Y. ~ S5
1894Moves to Rochester, N.Y. — the sales & corporate HQ (141–147 Jones St). ~ S5
~1895–98Leases Charles Sherwood's Camillus works — first domestic manufacture — before Kastor bought that building for Camillus (1902). ~ S5/S6
1898→1900Builds its own factory at Perry, N.Y. (the former Wyckoff Harvester cobblestone building). ~ S5
1901Adopts the coined “ShurEdge” mark — the house umbrella quality brand. ~ S5
1903Millard Robeson dies; sons George W. & Irving S. Robeson succeed — a family firm. ~ S6
1910–16The Terrier Cutlery Co. premium second line (dog-head device; reversed-triplet numbers). ~ S7
1914PocketEze — blade backs recessed flush with the frame so nothing wears the pocket (a trademark, not a patent). ~ S5
1916U.S. 1,186,692 / 693 — Siggins & Cooper's handle patent, assigned to Robeson (the “June 13 1916” tang date). ✓ primary · S1/S2
1922Merges with the Rochester Stamping Co. → Robeson-Rochester Corp. (the “Red Pig” housewares side). ~ S5
1940Bankruptcy → rescued by Saul Frankel, who hires Emerson Case (president 1948–65). ~ S8
1965→71Manufacturing ceases; Camillus contract-makes Robeson knives 1965–71; the brand is sold to Ontario Knife Co. (1971). ~ S5
1992Ontario files the surviving ROBESON mark (backdated 1895 first-use) → today Blue Ridge Knives. ✓ S3

The building Kastor would buy. Robeson's first domestic knives were made in Charles Sherwood's Camillus works, which it leased ~1895–98 — years before Adolph Kastor bought that same building and named it Camillus Cutlery Co. (1902). A building tie, not a corporate one — and the favor came back around: after Robeson's own factory closed in 1965, the Camillus “ghost maker” contract-made Robeson knives 1965–71. ~ S5

Two Case echoes, both false. Millard Robeson was born in Cattaraugus County — the county that seeded the Case dynasty — but there is no family link; it is the cutlery belt, not the bloodline. And Robeson's post-1948 president was named Emerson Case — again a coincidence, not W.R. Case & Sons. ~ S6/S8

ShurEdge & PocketEze — the brand you can see

Robeson's identity is unusually tangible. Two coined words carry it. ShurEdge (adopted 1901) is the house umbrella — the quality mark on the whole line, Robeson's own-brand answer to Keen Kutter and Diamond Edge, except Robeson made it — and it doubles as the dating key (below). PocketEze (~1914) is a construction you can see on the closed knife.

PocketEze — a feature, not a shape. The closed blade's back sits recessed flush with, or below, the frame line, so there is no sharp spine corner to wear a trouser pocket. It carries a nickel-silver name-shield on a red ground (gold-leaf on pearl). It was a trademark (~1914), never a patent — a full search by inventor, feature, and founder turned up no PocketEze construction patent and no Robeson pocket-knife patent, only the handle patent on the plate. ✓ S1/S2

The number — coded handle-first, and on the knife from ~1915

Robeson's number is coded handle-first (the Case/Ka-Bar family) — and, unusually, it was stamped on the knife itself from about 1915.

6 2 2 357

6 = bone 2 = two blades 2 = brass liners 357 = die shape → No. 622357, a bone ShurEdge PocketEze jack

Read [handle][blades][liner/bolster][die]. A 6-digit number is two triplets (622/357); the 5-digit form drops the die triplet's leading zero. Distinctively, saw-cut bone gets its own digit (5), split from ordinary jigged bone (6) — most makers lump all bone together. And unlike Case (no tang number until 1949), the number was stamped on the knife (pile side) from ~1915. Reconstructed by collectors — no factory key survives (unlike Schrade). ~ S7

Patterns & the Terrier — ~1,200 patterns, one construction

Robeson claimed some 1,200 patterns; the signature is the PocketEze construction across the standard shapes, plus a premium action line and a short-lived collectible second brand.

Pattern / line	What it is	Note
PocketEze	The construction line	recessed blade backs; red-ground nickel-silver name-shield (gold-leaf on pearl). The defining Robeson line.
MasterCraft	NEV-R-BIND premium action	a “U”-shaped bronze oil-less bearing at the tang; master blade etched “NEV-R-BIND OILESS BEARINGS.”
Terrier	The 1910–16 second line	premium; a terrier dog-head device and pattern numbers with the two triplets stamped reversed.
ShurEdge	The full pocket line	jacks, pens, stockmen, whittlers, Barlows, congress, trappers — under the ShurEdge etch.
Premier	An early line / shield	on import-era tangs (1891–95) and later a shield.

Handles: green & brown jigged bone (no “peachseed”-style nickname), saw-cut bone (its own code digit), pearl/abalone up top (the gold-leaf shield), genuine stag, and a large fancy celluloid palette — but Robeson uniquely did not brand its celluloid (unlike Remington's Pyremite, Cattaraugus's Fiberloid, or Schrade's Pyralin). Its named materials are “ShurWood” (a wood composite) and the compressed-fiber composition of the 1916 patent.

Three things that are not pre-war Robeson. “Strawberry bone” (bright red jigged bone) is a 1950s material; a “ROBESON + pattern-number + U.S.A.” tang with no ShurEdge is Ontario (1965–77); and the “1 of 100 / 1 of 300” PocketEze whittlers flooding the market are a Queen revival (1993–2017). And the animal on a Terrier is a terrier dog — there is no Robeson “frog.”

Dating a knife by the ShurEdge stamp — the coined mark is the key

You date a Robeson by the ShurEdge master-blade stamp — the coined mark is the dating key, even though (like Schrade) no maker-era registration survives.

The tang reads…	Date	The tell
M.F. ROBESON, or any blade with ENGLAND / GERMANY	c.1880–1895	IMPORTED goods (Sheffield / Solingen), before Robeson made knives.
THE ROBESON CUT. CO / ROCHESTER, N.Y.	c.1896–1899	the earliest U.S.-made marks.
ROBESON / ShurEdge (flowing script) / ROCHESTER, every blade stamped	~1922–1939	the classic pre-war die — script ShurEdge + ROCHESTER spelled.
ROBESON / SHUREDGE (BLOCK caps) / U.S.A. — master blade only	~1940–1965	post-Frankel/Case; still the original company.
ROBESON / [pattern number] / U.S.A. (no ShurEdge)	1965–1977	Ontario Knife Co. — not the original maker.

A blade stamped PAT. JUNE 13, 1916 cites the Siggins–Cooper handle patent on the plate. The script→block boundary is fuzzy (1939 vs 1940 vs “by 1948”). ~ S7/S8

The trademark is a 1992 revival — but the stamp still dates the knife. Like New York Knife Co., Cattaraugus, and Schrade, no maker-era Robeson registration survives. The only live ROBESON mark was filed in 1992 by the Ontario Knife Co. — the 1971 successor — with a backdated 1895 first-use (now Blue Ridge Knives); SHUREDGE and POCKET EZE are brand-new 2025 Blue Ridge applications. The poignant twist: the coined ShurEdge mark you cannot find registered is exactly the mark you date the knife by. ✓ S3

What a knife cost — an honest non-answer

No digitized, public-domain, image-verified, Robeson-branded price was found — the Case / Camillus / Schrade pattern. The Robeson ShurEdge salesman's catalog (~1908–1930) survives only as a modern reproduction. And a caution the method insists on: digitized PD jobber catalogs Robeson reportedly supplied — the Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett 1910 catalog, with priced O.V.B. pocket knives — are image-verifiable, but a full-text search of that catalog finds “O.V.B.,” never “Robeson.” The O.V.B.→Robeson maker link is a collector claim the page does not support, so an O.V.B. price cannot honestly be presented as a Robeson price. ⚑ archival

In period print

Robeson leaned on two coined names — ShurEdge and the sunk-blade PocketEze — and the period press followed both, from the 1916 trade announcement to Christmas dealer ads across the country. Each quote was read on the original page; all are public-domain.

Trade press · 1916

“a new line of pocket knives … ‘Pocket Eze.’”

The trade weekly announces Robeson’s new line — blades “sunk into the handle,” with a red name-shield.

Hardware Age · Aug. 24, 1916. Internet Archive →

Advertisement · 1910

“15 new and exclusive patterns.”

A Christmas ad for Robeson ‘Shur-Edge’ pocket knives — pointing readers to Robeson’s full-page ad in the Saturday Evening Post.

Coshocton Daily Age, Ohio · Dec. 3, 1910. Internet Archive →

Advertisement · 1919

“Daddy! Give that boy a real pocket knife.”

A Robeson ShurEdge window-display ad — “made by Americans for Americans.”

Hardware Age · Sept. 4, 1919. Internet Archive →

Advertisement · 1921

“The knife with the sunken blades.”

“Saves the finger nails and does not wear the pocket” — the PocketEze pitch in one line.

Windham County Observer, Conn. · Aug. 24, 1921. Library of Congress →

Advertisement · 1902

“over 1000 different styles.”

The earliest find — a retailer’s display of Robeson razors, pocket knives and shears, with free honing.

The Plymouth Tribune, Ind. · Nov. 20, 1902. Library of Congress →

Advertisement · 1925

“genuine stag handles and German silver tips.”

Robeson’s Pocketeze, a special at $1.40.

New Britain Herald, Conn. · Jan. 30, 1925. Library of Congress →

Sources

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

U.S. Patents — 1,186,693 (“Knife-Handle and Method…,” the plate) and its companion 1,186,692 (“Knife-Handle”), Siggins & Cooper, assigned to Robeson Cutlery Co., both patented June 13 1916; and 1,030,058 (Doles, 1912) opened only to exclude it. Google Patents · PD · opened. ✓ S1/S2
USPTO records — ROBESON (Reg. 1,915,997, filed 1992 by Ontario Knife Co., first-use 1895, now Blue Ridge Knives); SHUREDGE & POCKET EZE (2025 applications). Read directly. ✓ S3
Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett 1910 catalog — a PD priced jobber catalog checked as a discipline anchor: full-text search finds “O.V.B.,” never “Robeson.” archive.org · PD. ✓ S4
Secondary / leads: Smoky Mountain Knife Works & Life in the Finger Lakes (the founder, the Camillus lease, the chronology); AllAboutPocketKnives & Knife Talk (the numbering, the ShurEdge stamp chronology, the Terrier, PocketEze); the New York Pocketknife DB (the contract-brand list); and the Perry historic marker. ~ S5–S10