Russell Green River Works "Professional" 9" Bull Nose Carbon Steel Twine Wrap 1930s-50s?

Marks lost Russell Green River Works "Professional" series with blanked carbon steel blade and distinctive Russell beechwood handle with twine wrap. This line was made for butchers and generally show up very used with the twine damaged, its great to find an example with undamaged original twine like this. It was a bit sharpened in and needed a thinning, the original light surface etch had already almost disappeared before the necessary work was done. It is now thinned and sharpened and ready to get back to work.

This was most likely made in Turners Falls Mass. in the 1930s before J Russell folded or possibly made by Dexter in Southbridge Mass after the Dexter-Russell merge up to the 1950s or 60s with older dies or parts, this is a guess though, I somehow doubt the twine handle would have survived all that.

Russell Green River Works was the first American knife-maker to look to aggressively meet the new and growing American cutlery market which was being met with English imports from Sheffield. In the pre-Civil War time period of the 1830s to 1860 Sheffield engaged in a protracted trade war with the new American knife makers, dumping underpriced knives on the American market in an effort to bankrupt companies such as J Russell, Lamson and Goodnow, and Harrington Cutlery. Russell's answer to this was to offer wages double that being available in Sheffield and to incorporate immigrant Sheffield skilled labor into his process.