Gilbert Cooper called me in early November and said he estimates Cooper Cutlery will start shipping knives to dealers very soon. He explained they have 13 trademarks and to protect them they had to enter product into commerce for all 13. That process consumed a fair bit of time and was at least partially responsible for delays.

In addition to Schatt & Morgan the company plans to offer knives branded Beaver Falls and New York Knife Co. All are venerable old brands. Time will tell how these knives differ from the Schatt & Morgan line

The Ohio-made knives will carry a limited lifetime guarantee so some extras will be made and kept in the vault to cover potential warranty claims.  

In closing, Gilbert said he will send me some knives to us next week for feedback. True to his word, Mr. Cooper did indeed send a trio of balloon jacks, two of which were easy-openers. All were stamped Schatt & Morgan. Because these were not production product, Queen Cutlery History made the decision not to publish photos. Instead we offered comments, as requested, to Cooper Cutlery.

The editors of queencutleryhistory.com would like to express our sincere thank you to Austin Jackson for sharing his observations and photographs following his December 6, 2021 visit to Cooper Cutlery.

Yesterday afternoon, I took a trip down to Winchester, Ohio to meet with the new owner of Schatt & Morgan Cutlery, Gilbert Cooper. Mr. Cooper owns Cooper Cutlery who some of you may know as the company who purchased the Queen Cutlery machines and tools from the old Queen Cutlery factory in Titusville, PA. I also met with several of his employees who were all very wonderful and knife knowledgeable people.

Mr. Cooper has released his first trial run of knives which are known as the Weed & Co. cutlery line. Mr. Cooper informed me that he wanted to use the Weed & Co. cutlery line as a cutlery line to learn from before making and perfecting the Schatt & Morgan Cutlery line along with many other cutlery brands he owns.

Mr. Cooper expressed to me that he and his employees are well aware the Schatt & Morgan Cutlery line needs to be GEC quality or better, and nothing less is acceptable.

The new line of Schatt & Morgan Cutlery will consist of 1095 carbon steel blades with smooth bone and/or jigged bone handle materials. The knives will all be hand made, hand pinned, and hand sharpened in Winchester, Ohio, USA! The knives will be released with a box containing the new Schatt & Morgan Cutlery sticker label. It was great to see a preview of the new Schatt & Morgan Cutlery knives being made!

There is a lot of false information out there regarding what I have just mentioned. The information I have just listed, was learned from my personal visit to Cooper Cutlery. If anyone has questions regarding the new Schatt & Morgan Cutlery line or any new cutlery line by Cooper Cutlery, please contact me anytime and I will answer your questions. 

Schatt & Morgan Cutlery was founded in 1895 and dissolved into bankruptcy in 1933. In that year all its assets were purchased at a sheriff’s sale by Queen City Cutlery (later Queen Cutlery Co.). In 1991 Queen resurrected the Schatt & Morgan name by launching the Keystone Series, an annual set of 6 or 7 knives, many of which were true to the original Schatt & Morgan designs.

Fast forward to 2018 when Queen Cutlery went bankrupt after nearly a century in business. A liquidation auction took place June 1, 2019 and almost all of the contents of the Queen factory in Titusville, as well as trademarks, were sold to Gilbert Cooper of Winchester, Ohio. Queen Cutlery History recently had a lengthy talk with Gilbert and he was very generous in sharing his thoughts, plans, photos and some knives with us. With his permission, we are able to give you some insights.

Note: click on any photo to enlarge it and view a detailed description.

Gilbert told us his original plan had been to keep all the equipment in Titusville, PA and set up a new cutlery factory in the partially vacant Titusville Opportunity Park at the east end of town. The factory contents he’d bought were temporarily stored in a warehouse at the park. He said the Chamber of Commerce was very supportive and put him in touch with the real estate manager. It was here he hit a brick wall. The manager was alleged to have said something to the effect of “…one cutlery company in Titusville was enough …”. This was a reference to Great Eastern Cutlery which also has its factory in that industrial park. The statement completely ignores the fact that Queen and Great Eastern had co-existed in the city for years. The mayor of Titusville was said to have ignored repeated phone calls seeking some cooperation. Had Gilbert been able to establish the business in Titusville, he was prepared to offer employment to some of the skilled people let go when Queen closed. The plan made sense.

Faced with this opposition though, Mr. Cooper made plans to bring everything to his hometown of Winchester “…then covid hit”. Finally, four semi-loads, two 36 foot trailer loads plus an 18 foot trailer had delivered everything to Ohio, one year to the day after the auction. Then he went to work cleaning, refurbishing and setting up the machinery in a modern metal building on his property. The story of Cooper Cutlery has begun.

Gilbert told us that although he holds the trademarks to twelve knife brands, early on he decided Schatt & Morgan knives would be the primary focus of his attention, at least for the time being. Queen was among those trademarks but he decided to sell those rights to Smoky Mountain Knife Works. After an initial pilot run of a knife made by Bear & Son, SMKW has shifted production of Queen knives to China.

Gilbert strongly emphasizes that will not be the case with his knives. All of them will be manufactured in the USA, in his Ohio factory, under his supervision. The new Schatt & Morgan knives will be “similar to what people are used to seeing but with a little difference”, as you can see in these accompanying photographs. The objective is to build knives the way they were made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Since he owns the tooling for numerous S&M patterns, those tools will be used. Blades will be made with 1095 carbon steel. Old bone slabs have been purchased and are jigged on an old Utica machine at Blue Grass Cutlery, in Manchester, Ohio, a few miles away. Natural dyes are being used to color the bone handles.

For example, walnut husks are used to make amber dye and for red, pokeberries are used. Hand craftsmanship will be evident. The knives are assembled and pinned by hand and blades are hand ground.

But … and this is where things get really interesting … the company has other handle materials which have already been used on some of their knives. Look for camel bone, fossilized ivory, rams horn and buffalo horn, for example. Wood handles are not in the plan now but that could change down the road, if there is demand.

A small run of single-blade Barlows, with either clip, razor or spear blade and nickel silver bolsters has already been made. These are stamped Queen City, Winchester, OH, made when Cooper still owned the trademarks. Several variations of the venerable Barlow have been made. Among these are “Barlow lites” which have aluminum bolsters and brass liners. These are very light knives, weighing 20 grams (about 3/4 oz) less than a the same knife with nickel silver bolsters. QCH has had a chance to handle and examine some of these beautiful knives (see photos).

The workmanship is first rate! Spring pull is just right and the blades snap open and closed smoothly and with precision. The handles were breathtaking! Natural dyed bone included amber and Caribbean blue. Others were handled with Mammoth ring ivory, fossilized Walrus ivory and Warthog tusk. Some had cast shields and a couple did not.