Howdy!  I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! I spent some of mine at the

 "Barteaux Manse" in Portland, Oregon. Jerry and Carol Barteaux are my parents-in-law. Jerry is the grandson of Oral Dexter Barteaux, founder of the Barteaux dynasty. Oral was previously from South Bridge, MA where he began knife making. He moved operations to Waldport, OR in the 1940's. Jerry thinks these were mostly hunting knives. 

Oral begat Edward Dexter Barteaux and Francis (Frank) Barteaux, both who worked in the knife trade.

Ed Barteaux begat son, Jerry Barteaux (my father-in-law) and half-bother to Jerry-Frank who begat sons Robert (deceased) and Mervin(still living). The two sons made knives with dad Frank.

Jerry made knives with his father Ed AND Uncle Frank. So he has seen the operations of both.

I may be able to find out more info about Barteaux Knves from Franks son Mervin, through Jerry. Jerry is about the only living person who knows any of this.

, he's 85 yrs/o.

Ed sold his portion of the biz to Frank and eventualy Frank sold to a Mr. Murphy? I saw the name somewhere...

 

I know that the interest in "Barteaux Knives" mostly surounds WW2 issued fighting knives but these are the knives Jerry has on hand and all for domestic meat carving. They are very similar to Gerber  who made knives at Willamette, OR, near 

Portland. They were in compitition with one another. Gerbers son was in advertizing and was able to get his knives in front of more people. 

 

Please note the knife blanks and various stages of production, wooden boxes, some literature and machette's.

 

hyrax222

Thanks for the interesting post! 

Were you able to sneak any blades into your luggage ? 😆

I will probably inherit...He lives just 10-12 miles away.

 

Now to track down Mervin Barteaux!

 

hyrax222 

Someone has to find out the first name of the elusive "Clouse", the 3rd name in this knifemaking bunch!

hyrax222, very nice info and pictures.  

20 hours ago, hyrax222 said:

Ed sold his portion of the biz to Frank and eventualy Frank sold to a Mr. Murphy? I saw the name somewhere...

Murphy was the connection to Gerber.  It is too bad that in the very little information there is about the early days of Gerber, nothing I have found has a connection between Barteaux & Sons and Gerber.  There is a book, "A Chronology of Gerber Legendary Blades" by Phil Rodenberg that has the history of Gerber knives starting with Murphy.  It gives a good history of Gerber from 1939 - 1986.  The knife at the top of your first picture is identical to Gerber's Pixie knife.  That knife sold in both the cutlery and hunting side until the end of the 1980's.  Just need to give credit where credit is due.  My attached pic is from the 1984 Gerber catalog.  

Yes, I thought of the Gerber "Pixie" too. Thank you for the additional information.

 

hyrax222

Hyrax:

 

Very interesting background info on the Barteaux blades.  Thanks for filling in the blanks and thus adding to the body of knowledge on this maker.

 

Regards,

Charlie

Christmas update-

 

I erred in my original Barteaux knife making saga. It is Mervin Barteaux who is deceased not Robert Barteaux. I am urging  Jerry Barteaux to contact Robert asap.. That is providing he's still amoung us.

 

Merry Christmas! Christ is Born!

hyrax222

Great information, please dig for more.

 

As an aside I wrote a follow up to my old article, it is in the September 2023 edition of Knife Magazine after finding more information on the Murphy, Barteaux, Clouse trio if anyone is interested. 

 

And the full name of Clouse is Adamish Henry Clouse. 

Frank-

So glad to dig into this! I will stay on it...

 

hyrax222 

I'm always interested in info regarding Clouse knives because it is one of my "grail" knives. Finally found a picture of one that sold many years ago and found out what was written on the opposite side of the handle. Clouse on one side and "Hand Made" on the other....

Interesting... Do you have any information on the Barteaux machetes?

Greg, come up to LaFargeville and you can cut up an apple or open some junk mail with this one. You’re only 15 minutes away!

The machetes found locally...thats all I got. Sorry...

 

hyrax2

On 5/24/2024 at 7:41 AM, jim_mi said:

Interesting... Do you have any information on the Barteaux machetes?

22

On 5/25/2024 at 10:24 PM, Rancid Polecat said:

Greg, come up to LaFargeville and you can cut up an apple or open some junk mail with this one. You’re only 15 minutes away!

 

Rancid,

 

That's just teasing, lol. I want one so much to complete my ww2 Oregon fighting knife collection. If you need a custom sheath made, or an old one repaired, hit me up at 315-486-6255. I make sheaths for alot of folks on some of the knife forums.

Greg Owens-

 

Beautifull scabbard! Shows artistry and imagination. What can you do for a M1911A1?

I stick to making custom sheaths for vintage knives.

I've recently come across two vintage Williams Bros. Cutlery knives with obviously Barteaux handle on them. What's also strange is that the guard is at a slant like the Murphy Combat. Has anyone heard if Frank ever worked for Williams? Williams was out of San Francisco. I will post pics tomorrow. Thanks!