Dan Lago, David Krauss and Fred Fisher, 11-24, 2025 (second version)
We gratefully acknowledge suggestions for improvement in this article by Fred R. Sampson, Bruce Godlesky, and David Anderton.
Introduction
This is a second, expanded version of our article on Drake Well Commemorative knives by Queen Cutlery. We add some additional detail about the most famous, 1972 Barlow knife, including a rarely seen probable prototype.
We then shift to an older knife and several additional knives that provide a clearer history of the importance of the beginning of the oil industry in Titusville. We then conclude with the last of Queen Cutlery’s Drake Well commemoratives that have not gotten the publicity but still reflect the long company history of honoring the greatest accomplishment of its Titusville, PA home.
Figure 1, the Drake Well Barlow Knife.
This knife had four features that made it special. It had a blade etch devoted to a unique historical event of great interest in Titusville, Pa., It had a unique tang stamp used for only one year, 1972, on both the tang and the large bolster. It had a unique model number (#139), and it was offered only one time in limited numbers compared to the regular production Barlow knife. It used sawcut bone handles rather than current knives’ delrin. In addition to commemorating the 113 year of the actual well, it was also the 50th anniversary of the founding of Queen City in 1922.
In other ways, the knife was not all that unusual – it was essentially like the regular two-blade clip Barlow with small spear, (model #22), that the company had offered consistently since its first catalog in 1947, with the same brown sawcut bone scales from the early days, and with the same hardware store six-pack blue box – no special box (for those interested you can refer to our article on Queen boxes from 1947-1971, on this website.
Figure 2. Box for The Drake Well Barlow, showing price of $34.00.
Not a “collector box” for each individual knife ($5.67 each, beyond the wholesale price announced in the press release shown in Figure 4). These boxes are very rare.
Since this knife was developed in the very early years of Servotronics ownership of Queen Cutlery, there has been some thought that the new owners wanted to move into the increasing interest and market for collector knives. That does not seem to be the case. They sold off almost all their completed knives in the vault, so completing orders in a timely way became a persistent problem for the company. They also sold parts for knives throughout the 70s, so others could complete knives that look like Queen knives, but didn’t carry the warranty – eventually they stopped this practice in the early ’80s, when it caused problems for the company’s own warranty policies. It seems their highest priority was selling cutlery resources to recover their sale price.
However, one thing they started to do was to give salesmen more freedom to explore opportunities for Special factory orders (SFO). One salesman, whose name has been lost over the last 50 years, had the local western Pennsylvania region to cover, and was active in his home community in planning for the annual Titusville, Pennsylvania Oil Days Festival held each August.
The Drake Well Success. Drilled by hand in 1859, along the banks of Oil Creek, it was the first commercial oil well in the United States. Drake Well was listed on National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966. It was designated a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark in 1979. The well was designated a National Historic Chemical Landmark in 2009, on the sesquicentennial of the strike. Titusville and the region benefitted greatly from the first oil boom and the riches that led to the name for the town as “The Queen City.” It was the first home for the famous Standard Oil business – the heart of the Rockafeller fortune.
So, just as the community has persisted in keeping the first oil well in the national memory, they also urged Queen Cutlery to develop a special commemorative knife for sale locally during Titusville’s annual August “Oil Days” Festival. The unknown salesman convinced Robert Mathews, Vice President of the company at that time, to get behind the project (Fred R. Sampson, personal communication, 2020). Mathews was a lifetime resident of Titusville, and no doubt knew many of the Oil Days planners and sponsors. He agreed and helped to broaden interest in the Servotronics management (In Franklinville, NY) and by working with Dewey Ferguson. author of “The Romance of Knife Collecting“. Ferguson’s book, a landmark book for knife collectors, covered four knife companies, including Queen Cutlery.
Robert Mathews, it seems, had been successful in gaining Servotronics support and increasing the size of the edition beyond what could reasonably be expected from just local sales associated with the Oil Days festival. Note the distinction between Mathews letters to Ferguson with Titusville address, and the press release from Servotronics management announcing the features of the knife and that Queen had contracted with the Ischua Valley Outfitters to manage the marketing of the knife nationally (Figures 3, 4, And 5).
Figure 3. Letter from Robert Mathews to Dewey Ferguson, 8-30-1972.
Figure 4. Queen Press Release with Ischua Valley Outfitters on Selling the Drake Well Barlow, (page 1.)
Figure 5. Queen Press Release with Ischua Valley Outfitters on the Drake Well Barlow, (page 2.)
This press release clears up the total number of Drake Well Barlows that may have been produced – approximately 3,600. Since Franklinville NY, Where Queen’s business operations were handled, was in the Ischua Valley in NY, less than 10 miles from Ischua Valley Outfitters offices, there is little doubt that Servotronics, through their other cutlery company, Ontario Knife Company, held the reins for the marketing effort. While Robert Mathews, from his own office, contacted an influential collector with news, not only about the knife, but about the limited use of the 50th anniversary tang stamp, as well as other news about very limited tang stamps they had produced after resuming tang stamps. He clearly was supportive of this knife and the project.
Figure 6. An original “mock-up” board for Dewey Ferguson’s Romance of Knife Collecting (2nd edition), p. 219, showing he responded completely to Robert Mathews letter promoting the Drake Well Barlow. (Collection of Fred Fisher).
The knife as sold by Ischua Valley Outfitters did not immediately sell-out (even though the price seems very nice to us from 50 years away). Though the announcement was made in later summer of 1972, the knife was still offered on Queen’s own price lists in 1977 and 1978, (see price lists on our website) as well as in the large 1981 catalog – nine years after the deal. This suggests that Ischua Valley Outfitters connection did not go all that well for Servotronics and Queen.
This knife is still often seen on the Internet sites and is often in pretty good condition, despite being a very practical knife. It is the first of several Drake well commemoratives Queen offered and its tang stamp and bolster marks are well recognized as a 50th year, one-time use. It used sawcut bone rather than the more common delrin used in the regular production #22 Barlow. Most collectors of traditional Queen knives feel this is an important knife because of its role in opening the door to collector knives – the first.
Probable Prototype of Queen 1972 Drake Well.
Thanks to Bruce Godlesky, we have learned of an early prototype for the Drake Well 1972 Barlow, as described below.
Photo 07. A Queen Barlow with 1972 tang and bolster Commemorative of the Drake Well in 1859. This knife is rarely seen but is probably a prototype with a spear blade and text-0nly blade etch using somewhat odd years of 1922 (Queen’s City’s founding) rather than the actual well date. Photo by Bruce Godlesky.
This knife still shows strong opening and closing and is very sharp, though not used heavily. It is very well made. It has the right tang and bolster marks and sawcut bone used in the more prevalent and highly regarded Barlow with the “well etch” on the blade (see photo 1). It was acquired “a long time ago” by an active collector off of Ebay and was only recently brought to our attention on Facebook.
Titusville Iron Works Diamond Jubilee knife, 1934.
However, despite the attention to the 1972 Barlow, we have now been made aware of a much earlier knife produced in 1934.
Photo 08. A small (3.25”) two-blade “office knife” with pressed lettering on celluloid handles made in 1934 to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee (75 years) of the oil industry (and the Drake Well that inaugurated that industry). The knife was made by Queen City Cutlery in 1934.
Photo 09. A view of the tang with Queen City, Titusville stamp and date of the knife in the celluloid handle.
Photo 10. Pile side of the 1934 knife shown in the Photos, above, was commissioned by the Titusville Iron Works. This company was the first to supply specialized equipment to the new oil industry and was a prominent factor in the growth of the industry in Titusville. Celebrating the Titusville Iron Works – Pennsylvania Historic Preservation
This knife was gifted to us by David Anderton, long active in the Venango County Historical Society, based in Oil City, Pennsylvania, which also owes much of its early success from the Pennsylvania oil industry. You can see the ‘gassing” of the celluloid handles has started to deteriorate the steel blades and “City” of the tang stamp is very hard to see. Very few of this knife have survived. We are very lucky to have this very rare knife provided for us to document. Thank you, David!
Later Queen Drake Well Commemoratives
In the mid -1980s, Queen also produced a mid-size stag lockback knife familiar to most Queen Collectors. We will simply refer you to our blog on those knives since they are already covered in other contexts. Please see figure 8 on this site: Queen Midsize Lockback knives – Queen Cutlery Guide. A copy is included below.
Photo 11. Queen stag Drake Well with well shield and earlier tang stamp.
Similarly, they also produced a small lockback: Queen Cutlery Small Lockback knives – Queen Cutlery Guide, see figure 12 from that article. below.
Photo 12. Queen small Lockback honoring the oil industry, also 1984 These two stag knives represent the significant progress Queen made in the 1980s in building great knives for collectors compared to their first efforts in commemorating the Drake Well success.
Sampson Drake Well commemoratives
When Queen hit terrible economic times in the mid-1980s, their long-time master cutler, Fred Sampson, was laid off after 37 yearsworking at Queen. He never returned to the company but made many knives in his home to cope with the economic collapse. Two of them were Drake Well commemoratives.
Photo 13. A fixed blade skinner with stabilized wood handles and text blade etch. This knife and sheath were offered in a brown large clamshell case, with a “Sampson” tang stamp and business card.
Photo 14. A Sampson “Uncle Billy Smith” two-blade Copperhead with multi-colored stabilized wood handles, commemorating the man who actually drilled the well that made Edwin Drake famous. This image shows a clear example of the brown clamshell case, with Drake Well and date, used with both knives.
These knives are very hard to find, because Fred Sampson sold only to friends and local folks, they were never “marketed” to a national audience and were in very small editions.
Queen Cutlery “Wildcat Driller” Knives
Much subtler than blade etches, Queen Cutlery began to produce a series of very large pocketknives labeled as “Wildcat Drillers” after 2004. They simply changed the name of traditional “Elephant Toe” pocketknives to a locally preferred name. Queen had developed considerable skill in producing large elephant toe knives in the Case Classics series a few years earlier and they made it their own with the name change.
The term “wildcat driller” originates from the early oil industry in western Pennsylvania. It refers to individuals who drill wells in unproven areas, often referred to as “wildcat wells.” The term likely comes from Wildcat Hollow, a productive field in the early oil era, where speculators would risk drilling in areas that were largely untested. Notable wildcatters include figures like Glenn McCarthy and Thomas Baker Slick Sr., who played significant roles in the discovery of oil fields. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcatter.
The local history continues that one of these early drill rigs had a stuffed wildcat on top of the derrick. The name stuck and transferred to western oil fields, but it had a Titusville root.
In 2004, Queen issued the first Wildcat Driller as part of 2004 Shatt & Morgan Keystone set, with sterling silver shield, and dark red jigged bone in an edition of 600. They carried a unique name that recognized local history, were a handful, and became very popular. Queen made many of them, often in smaller editions and as special factory orders.
Photo 15. Queen’s first “Wildcat Driller” or traditional “Elephant Toe”, 2004. This image is from a public Internet site, and this knife can still be often seen on Internet sale sites and is favored for the use of sterling silver in the Keystone shield. An edition of 600 knives. Many knives of this type were made with different handle materials and small editions
During the Daniels era, one “driller” was produced that did have a Drake Well etch and was provided in a small oak, glass-topped display case, left over from the mid-‘80s from several custom knives. (See photo 16. Below.) We do feel it would be a fitting addition to Queen’s commemorative knives of Drake Well/local oil industry history because of its unique name and use of the 1984 drake Well blade etch. The final commemorative.
It is no surprise that a cutlery based in Titusville would have produced commemorative knives, given the national, and international impact of that discovery, and its crucial role in the economic wellbeing of that community. It is entirely likely we will have missed some knives, but this is the largest group of these knives we have seen so far.
Photo 16. The Wildcat Driller Drake Well commorative by Queen Cutlery (Daniels Family Cutlery) in about 2016 and the last Commemorative of Edwin Drake’s first commercial oil well in Titusville, PA, 1859. We do not know the size of this edition, but it is probably very small, between 25-50 knives,
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_Well
Fred R. Sampson Personal Communication 2020 on the Drake Well Barlow project
Correspondence from the collection of Dan Lago based on files purchased at the Queen Cutlery bankruptcy auction, 7-1-2018.
