Through the Decades: Collecting the Boker 9361 Scout/Utility Knife, Part 1.

Of cheeseburgers and pocket knives.

I was thinking about my favorite cheeseburgers the other day, and it occurred to me that they all derive from one of two classic styles. You have your classic homestyle burger that can be as simple as Ron Swanson’s, but can also be run through the garden and served deluxe, like a Burger King Whopper. But then you have your diner burger, which is often but not always a double-decker and includes a more complex sauce but fewer other toppings. The McDonald’s Big Mac would be the archetypical diner burger; I can still recite its recipe jingle today.

One day over a pint of Old Style and a cheeseburger at my favorite neighborhood diner it occurred to me that much the same is true when it comes to scout/utility knives; you can pretty much divide the universe into four-blade and six-blade variants. I’ve written recently about collecting the humpbacked, six-blade scout/utility knives, most of which hail from Solingen, Germany, with the Böker 182 surely being the ur-knife of the humpbacks. And of course the Victorinox Spartan, probably the most-carried and well-known six-blade pocket knife in the world today, descends directly from Victorinox’s original Officer’s and Sports Knife introduced in 1897. And both of these collectible classics can trace their ancestry back to German designs of previous centuries.

Victorinox, the ubiquitous six-bladed scout/utility knife since 1897.

Six blades good, four blades better?

Six implements is great, but if you don’t need a corkscrew, and if you can live with either a pen blade or an awl/punch (but not both), then you can go from six to four and significantly simplify the construction of the knife. Being more about beer than wine, I suppose, the four-blade scout/utility knife became the 20th century American standard with a master spear blade, can opener, cap lifter/screwdriver, and awl/punch tool all opening on one side. Starting very early in the 20th century, American sportspeople, hunters, soldiers, scouts, and campers discovered that the basic combination of these four specific implements gave almost unending utility. Although at least a dozen American makers produced this basic design, today it is typified by the very Swiss Victorinox Pioneer, which appeared in 1957 but traces its design directly from its great-great-grandknife, the Model 1890 from, well, 1890.

Two of my four-bladed and six-bladed favorites, the Vx Pioneer and Böker 182.

Which brings us to the subject of today’s article, the four-blade, American-made scout/utility knives made by Boker (USA), the most common being the model 9361. Produced by Boker in the US from the mid-1920’s to the late 1980’s, the 9361 was a contemporary of the Case scout/utility knife and numerous other offerings from Schrade, Ulster, Camillus, Remington, and other makers. Early specimens of the Boker 9361 are more artful and a bit daintier than that king of all American-made scout/utility knives, the Case 6445 R. But later evolutions caught up and the 9361 became a heavy duty scout/utility knife in its own right. The collector may find the sweet spot to be the mid-century 9361’s that combined the best quality and interesting implement design with the charm of hand-pinned jigged bone scales.

Almost endless utility and great collector potential with four-bladed American-made scout pattern knives.

The Boker 9361 possesses all the characteristics of collectibility: high quality implements that evolved over time, variation in tang stamps and front shields, rare variants and alternate brands, weirdo German/American hybrids, and cool blade etches. Of course, the fact that it went out of production entirely only adds to the urgency. This article is not a comprehensive collectors’ guide to all the Boker four-blade scout/utility knives; rather, it’s a condensed reference that might help get a new collector started with the Boker 9361. Would-be collectors are well advised to pick up a copy of Boker, Two Centuries and Two Countries…. by Neal Punchard and Ricky Ray, which has been enormously helpful to me.

My well-loved copy of Punchard & Ray.

Regarding date ranges, I haven’t done any original research here. I’m merely correlating what I read in published sources written by actual experts with what I see in the collector market and my own collection. Please take my date ranges as approximate and overlapping. Boker produced the model 9361 as early as 1925, and the model number was used in Boker’s catalog at least as early as 1928, so we’ll start there.

1920’s.

Construction. My earliest Boker scout is likely from the mid-to-late 1920’s. It features beautiful jigged bone scales; lined nickel silver bolsters, pins, and bail (note mine is a replacement); the liners and spacer are of brass. There is no decorative jimping on the liners or spacer of any of my Boker scout knives. The springs are very strong and produce a powerful snap on all the tools.

ca. mid-1920’s / early-1930’s Boker 9361.

Tool set. The cap lifter is on the same end as the main blade, and features a Prest-O-Lite valve wrench, or at least I assume that’s what the notch is. Somewhat oddly, there are half-stops on the side-opening scythe-style can opener and cap lifter, but not on the blade, which itself is beautifully and generously swedged on both sides. Even still it’s a tight fit and I am careful when folding things back up. The main blade is accessed by a nail nick, and, finally, the awl/punch has a curved profile and a needle-sharp end.

Shield, Tang, and Etch. The pinned banner shield on mine reads BOY SCOUT in a very bold, clear typeface. Other variants I’ve seen include ARMY KNIFE and SCOUT. The tang stamp is the only one that was ever used on both Solingen knives and US-made knives at the same time, H.BOKER & CO’S / IMPROVED / CUTLERY on the mark side, and the tree emblem on the pile side. Both the blade and cap lifter are marked this way, while the can opener and awl/punch are sterile.

Obverse tang on the ca. mid-1920’s Boker USA. This tang stamp is the only one ever in common with Solingen Böker.

Reverse tang on the ca. mid-1920’s 9361.

The main blade features what must have been a beautiful and impressive acid etch, which is sadly now disappearing. In just the right light, you can still make out “TREE BRAND” and “BOY SCOUT” with the famous Boker Tree bisecting the words. I’ve tried my best to capture it in pictures, but had to ask a friend for help photo-accentuating it.

Tree Brand Boy Scout etch, just barely visible. Image compliments Matt Burch.

Valley Forge Cutlery. One last note on this generation, which is that the identical knife was also manufactured by Valley Forge Cutlery at the same time. Valley Forge was owned by Hermann Boker & Co. at the time, so it’s not a surprise that the two factories produced a few identical patterns. Check out Model No. 0868 in the catalog page below, for example. The Valley Forge scout knives are relatively rarer than their Boker twins, and I haven’t found a specimen good enough to include in my collection yet. I’d love one, though, so if you know of one for sale please let me know. :)

A Valley Forge catalog page from ca. 1920-1930. Note Model No. 0868.

1930’s.

Construction. The 9361 carried on mostly unchanged after the Improved Cutlery era and before WWII. My specimen features beautiful jigged bone scales; lined nickel silver bolsters and pins; but no bail. (I don’t read too much into this, and have to think that the bail was optional, especially since my knife appears to have been a sales award.) The liners and spacer on my knife are of brass. The springs are very strong and produce a powerful snap on all the tools, but the half-stops on the openers are gone.

ca. 1930’s Boker 9361. Note the screwdriver lacks Prest-O-Light wrench notch.

Tool set. With the exception of the Prest-O-Lite valve wrench, which now belongs to the Ghost of Technologies Past, the tool set on this knife is identical to its predecessor. The cap lifter / screwdriver is a smidge shorter, presumably because it no longer has to accommodate the valve wrench cutout, but it seems curious that they didn’t just leave the length alone, since it would be welcome on its own. The can opener seems flimsier, and close inspection reveals it is made from thinner stock and is of a slightly different shape. The swedging and nail nick of the main blade carry over unchanged (as does the tight fit when folding up).

Obverse tang on ca. 1930’s 9361 was used from 1935-’42.

Shield, Tang, and Etch. The pinned banner shield is unchanged and mine appears to have been engraved as a sales award for an employee of the J.R. Watkins Co. (I briefly looked into this company, and was surprised to see it is still around.) The really cool thing about this era of Boker scout knife is the tang stamp, which is the large font BOKER (with no USA). The tree stamp appears on the pile side, but only on the blade; the cap lifter and other tools are sterile. This tang stamp was only used from 1935-42, so it’s a little rarer to see. If my knife from this era had a blade etch, and presumably it did, it is long gone.

Reverse tang of the ca. mid-late-1930’s 9361.

1940’s-’50’s. The Engineer’s Knife.

Like many US knife manufacturers, Boker supplied knives in fulfillment of US government contracts for use by engineers, technicians, medical personnel, and, presumably, ordinary soldiers as well. When I teach scout/utility knife history to Boy Scouts today, I always tell them that if it doesn’t have a shield, it’s an engineer’s knife; if it has a non-BSA shield of any sort, it’s a scout pattern knife; and if it has a BSA shield or etch, it’s a Scout-with-a-capital-S knife.

Start ‘em young!

Construction. Built to a spec, and not a hair past it, these war-era knives featured beautiful jigged bone scales, but the bolsters, pins, bail, liners, and spacer are all iron. The tool stock seems a bit thinner, especially on the openers, but the springs retain their strength and still produce a nice snap on all the tools when the joints are clean and lubricated.

Typical WWII-era engineer’s knives L to R: Case, Camillus, Ulster (early), Ulster (late).

Tool set. The tool set and layout carries over unchanged from the previous generation knife, but somewhere in this era, Boker appears to have borrowed the top-opening upward-motion plunge-style of can opener from Camillus for at least some knives. (We will see this borrowing of parts, or possibly contracting out of the entire build, again with a later 9361.) I wonder if the government specification changed to require the use of a top-opening can opener, or if maybe it was just an alternative design built at the same time. Otherwise, there were no significant changes to the knife and the main blade’s nail nick and swedge, as well as the contoured shape of the awl, soldiered on, now approaching 40 years old.

WWII-era Boker 9361 engineer’s knives. Note plunge-style can opener on bottom.

Shield, Tang, and Etch. There is no shield on an engineer’s knife, remember? The BOKER USA tang stamp was used, but there was no tree on the reverse side. This simple tang stamp was introduced in 1941 and persisted right through the end of Boker’s US production in 1983. New old stock specimens of these gov’t contract knives can still be found, and I’ve never seen one with a blade etch. Such frippery was probably not called for in the spec, so it makes sense that it was skipped at the factory.

BOKER USA tang stamps on post-1941 engineer’s knives.

1950’s-mid-’60’s.

The recovery from WWII brought famously rapid economic growth in the late 1940’s and 1950’s. While the Solingen Bökers were rebuilding their factory, Boker USA got to work revamping their product line and re-establishing the Tree Brand. The American company started again to import Böker knives produced in Solingen, which were easily distinguished from their American stablemates by their use of the round Tree shield. It was during this time that the famous Model 182 six-blade humpback sportmesser could be seen alongside the 9361 in American dealer catalogs, and it turned out to be the Golden Age of the 9361.

The pinnacle of Boker 9361 construction came in the late-1950’s / early-1960’s. These are fine knives.

Construction. These wonderful scout knives featured jigged bone scales of a beautiful and enticing caramel color, brass liners, brass spacer, and brass pins. The lined bolsters and bail were of nickel-silver. John Primble 3335’s (see below) are often seen with darker bone scales, although I have examples of both in my collection.

John Primble 3335’s from Golden Age of Boker 9361.

Tool set. Around 1960 or thereabouts, the 9361 was fundamentally revamped. What had been a very simple (some would say simply undersized) nail nick on the main blade became a handsome and purposeful long nail pull. Change continued with the position of the can opener and cap lifter, which switched position end-for-end, and the can opener was completely redesigned, going from the side-opening scythe-style (or the possibly-stopgap Camillus upward plunge style) to a stronger, safer, two-piece unit with a straight, sharpened, shear edge. The cap lifter/screwdriver changed to the longer style, and the punch/awl was retired altogether and replaced with a dandy pen blade which was nicely swedged on its inside. The pen blade is a very narrow spear, not a clip point, so I’d think it could even have some uses in common with a sharpened awl. So, quite a different setup compared to its 1925 forebear, tool-wise at least.

ca. 1950’s Boker 9361’s. Note new two-piece can opener, blade etch, and long nail pull.

Shield, Tang, and Etch. The banner shield that we saw in the 1920’s returns and the BOKER USA tang stamp first seen in 1941 continues, but now with the model number 9361 on the reverse side. It’s interesting to note that these tang markings are somewhat faint and crude, almost like an afterthought. The star of the show here, if you’re lucky enough to have a specimen where it’s intact, is the blade etch. The original acid etching is very light, however, meaning they wear off quickly with any amount of use, making them rare to find today.

Obverse tang (L) and reverse tang (R) of identical ca. 1950’s-’60’s Boker 9361’s.

The John Primble 3335. Happily for collectors, the same knife from the Golden Age of 9361’s was available as a John Primble by Belknap Hardware model 3335. The obverse tang makes clear who is taking responsibility for the quality, but the producer of these knives is easily identified as Boker USA when you see the star under the model number on the tang’s reverse side. Blade etches vary on these John Primble knives, and often have something to do with claims of the “Finest Steel” having being used.

The John Primble 3335 from the Golden Age of Boker 9361. Image compliments Matt Burch.

John Primble promises Goods of Honour. Image compliments Matt Burch.

To be continued…

This concludes Part 1 of my two-part series on the Boker 9361 scout/utility knife.  In Part 2, I will cover the numerous versions that appeared from ca. 1965 to 1988, a time of great change for Boker USA.  As usual, I thank you for your readership and welcome any factual corrections and comments.  And since I am publishing this article on Christmas Day, 2022, I will take this opportunity to wish all my readers happy holidays and a wonderful 2023.