Day Three in Solingen: Into the Klingenmuseum Archive

My third and final day in Solingen was less about seeing finished knives behind glass and more about digging into the history behind them.

After spending the previous days exploring the Solingen Stadtarchiv and the Deutsches Klingenmuseum, I had the opportunity to go deeper into the museum's archive.

For a collector, this is where things get especially interesting.

Old catalogs, pattern books and manufacturer materials can answer questions that the knives themselves often cannot. A knife may survive for a hundred years, but without documentation, determining exactly when a pattern appeared, how a manufacturer described it, or how it developed over time can become a matter of educated guesswork.

That was exactly what I was hoping to get beyond.

Catalogs and pattern books from the Deutsches Klingenmuseum archive in Solingen.

Searching for the Ur-Sportmesser

One of my main research goals in Solingen was to find the earliest German reference to the Sportmesser.

Up to that point, the oldest example I had been able to document came from Böker material dating to 1930. On the American side, however, I had found the Remington R3843 Camp and Sportsmen's Knife advertised as early as October 1923.

That gave me a very specific goal in the archives: could I find a German Sportmesser that predated the Remington?

Ideally, I was looking for something from the early 1900s, preferably before 1920, and I was particularly interested in finding a Sportmesser with a solid screwdriver. A securely dated early example with that feature could help push the German timeline back and provide stronger evidence that the pattern existed before the Remington appeared in 1923.

That was why a knife in a 1910 Luna pattern book immediately caught my attention.

As soon as I saw the humpback frame and the solid screwdriver, I got excited. A 1910 date was exactly the kind of evidence I had been hoping to find.

But when I studied the illustration more carefully, it became clear that it wasn't the Sportmesser I was looking for.

The Luna knife is a five-blade humpback utility knife, not the six-blade Sportmesser. Its overall silhouette is also noticeably different from what we now recognize as the Sportmesser pattern. It lacks the lower bolster and has a much longer, straighter section of the frame between the top bolster and the beginning of the hump.

So it wasn't the smoking gun.

What it did show was that Solingen makers were already producing humpback multi-blade utility knives by 1910.

A. Feist & Co. "Luna" pattern book, dated 1910 by the Deutsches Klingenmuseum archive. The page shows early multi-blade utility knives, including a five-blade humpback pattern with some similarities to the Sportmesser.

Then, in a 1924 Gebrüder Christians pattern book, I found essentially the same type of knife again: another five-blade humpback multi-blade utility knife. Its profile is very similar to the earlier Luna example, including that elongated section of the frame before the hump.

Again, I would not consider it a Sportmesser.

Gebrüder Christians pattern book, 1924. A five-blade humpback multi-blade utility knife, pattern No. 718 C, with a profile similar to the earlier 1910 Luna example.

The most intriguing discovery came from a Gebrüder Krusius pattern book. Inside was a hand-drawn image of an unfinished six-blade Sportmesser.

At first, I thought I had found the breakthrough.

The pattern book is cataloged as beginning in 1913, and if that particular drawing actually dated from that period, it could have pushed the German Sportmesser back well before the Remington.

The problem was that the book appears to have been used over a period of years. Other collectors pointed out drawings elsewhere in the same book showing later safety-style can openers, meaning not every drawing could safely be dated to 1913.

That made the six-blade Krusius drawing extremely interesting, but not definitive proof of an early date.

It shows that Krusius did have a six-blade Sportmesser. What it does not tell me is exactly when that particular drawing was added to the book.

So despite finding several important pieces of evidence, I still hadn't found what I had gone into the archive hoping to find: a securely dated German Sportmesser that predated the Remington.

Gebrüder Krusius pattern book. An unfinished hand-drawn six-blade Sportmesser; because the book was used over a period of years, the exact date of this particular drawing remains uncertain.

Hunting the Nietenmesser (Rivet Knife)

My other major research goal in Solingen involved a pattern that has become an equally important part of my collection: the Nietenmesser, or rivet knife.

These knives are immediately recognizable by the decorative rivets set into one side of the handle. I own examples from a number of Solingen manufacturers, but one of the questions I wanted to answer was just how far back the pattern could be documented.

Some of the earliest clues came from an 1859 Friedrich Koch hand-drawn pattern book. A couple of the knives pictured there already looked remarkably similar to the later rivet knives and immediately caught my attention.

Friedrich Koch pattern book, 1859. Hand-drawn knife patterns showing several construction details also seen on rivet knives.

But the first one that really jumped out at me came from an 1880 Peter Hendrichs pattern book.

That was the moment I stopped and thought, Wow, that looks just like the rivet knives being sold today.

The overall construction and appearance were remarkably familiar. For me, it was the clearest early example I had found, showing that this distinctive style of knife was already being produced in Solingen by 1880.

Peter Hendrichs pattern book, 1880. Two pages showing numerous pocket knife patterns, including examples with decorative handle rivets characteristic of the Nietenmesser (rivet knife).

I found more examples on loose pages dated 1884, followed by additional examples in pattern books from around the turn of the century.

From what I have been able to find, the pattern was definitely around by the 1880s, and by the turn of the century it appears to have been a recognized pattern produced by a number of different Solingen cutlers.

Unlike the Sportmesser search, where the earliest history remained difficult to pin down, the Nietenmesser research gave me clear evidence that this distinctive Solingen pattern reaches well back into the 19th century.

Loose hand-drawn pages in a folder dated 1884, showing several examples with characteristics seen on rivet knives.

Rivet knife patterns from Heinrich Kaufmann (1900) and Carl Schmidt Sohn (1902).

Leaving Solingen

I didn't leave Solingen with every answer I had been looking for, but I did leave with a much clearer picture of both patterns I had come to research.

The Sportmesser still has unanswered questions. I found some intriguing early evidence, but not the securely dated pre-Remington German example I had hoped for.

The Nietenmesser was a different story. The material I found showed that the pattern was already being produced in Solingen by the 1880s and was well established among different Solingen cutlers by the turn of the century.

After three days between the Solingen Stadtarchiv, the Deutsches Klingenmuseum and its archive, I came away with photographs, notes, new leads and plenty more to research.

The trip didn't answer every question.

But it gave me a much better foundation for continuing the hunt.

Related Videos

Want to see more of the research behind this article?

I covered the Solingen research trip in a video on the Messer HQ YouTube channel, including more of the original pattern books and archival material from the trip.

I also made a separate video taking a closer look at the Nietenmesser (rivet knife) pattern, its history and examples from my collection.

Watch the Solingen Research Trip →

Watch the Nietenmesser / Rivet Knife Video →