Queen Cutlery specializes in folding knives, literally bench-made the old-fashioned way. Queen’s craftsmen work from the same factory where the company began and still produce many of the original company patterns. One of the few traditional cutlery companies to survive the cycles of hard economic times, Queen still produces many of its polished blades from D2 tool steel.
Schatt & Morgan Cutlery Company opened its doors in Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1902, relocating there after a successful startup in Gowanda, New York. Like many modern cutlery companies, Schatt & Morgan gave rise to a new one, but through an ironic and technically illegal twist. In Titusville, five supervisors at Schatt & Morgan started Queen Cutlery on the sly, without quitting their jobs at their current company. While working at the plant, the five men would squirrel away “skeleton knives” without handle scales, to be finished off the premises and sold privately. Queen Cutlery knives began showing up around 1918, but the five founders weren’t discovered and fired until 1922. The five men promptly went into business on their own, about a mile from their old employer. When Schatt & Morgan went bust in the late 1920’s, the exiles purchased the company’s assets, and moved back into the old building in 1933.
Queen Cutlery was one of the first cutlers to experiment with stainless steel, eventually settling on ATS-34 and D2 as their primary stock. Servotronics, the current owner of Ontario Knife Company, bought Queen Cutlery in 1967. OKC specializes in fixed blades, while Queen focuses mainly on folders but still produces some fixed blade hunters.
Queen Cutlery creates fine folding and fixed blade knives, using slipjoint and lockback mechanisms in many of the company’s folders. Some show old-fashioned features like the folding blade guard of the Swing Guard Lock Knife, a pocket folder with the look of an American slipjoint knife plus a stilletto’s crossguard. Only 500 Rangers, one of Queen’s limited editions, will ever be sold. The Ranger combines modern Damascus-like steel with traditional Queen Cutlery workmanship and features both lockback and one-hand opening. Queen also manufactures classic knives from both the Queen Cutlery line and the older predecessor, Schatt & Morgan.
