Vintage Richards Sheffield Single Blade Knife ~ BIG, OLD, BUDGET TRADITIONAL FOLDING KNIFE скачать в хорошем качестве

Vintage Richards Sheffield Single Blade Knife ~ BIG, OLD, BUDGET TRADITIONAL FOLDING KNIFE

Richards was arguably the only twentieth-century Sheffield firm to make a fortune from what had been one of the cutlery industry’s staples – the manufacture of pocket knives. Significantly, the roots of the company lay not in Sheffield, but in that rival German cutlery centre of Solingen. In 1900, the brothers Heinrich and Johann Richartz had launched Gebruder Richartz & Soehne (Black & Punchard, 20191). They made pocket knives, scissors, and table cutlery, sporting a ‘LAMP POST’ logo. In 1932, descendants Paul Peter Richartz (1888-1961) and Stephan Richartz (1898-1974) started a cutlery factory in Broomhall Street. Helped by their colleague and engineer Wilhelm Muller (1905-1982), machines were imported from Germany. The company was registered as Richards Bros & Sons (with a trade mark picture of a Tent, besides the Lamp Post). The staff at first was less than ten, but by 1934 this had increased to 134, and by 1938 it was 300. Besides pocket knives, the firm sold stainless steel kitchen knives and fish eaters, some of which were made in Art-Deco designs with bakelite handles. Richards registered the trade name ‘BUTILITY’ for these products, which were ostensibly made by Butility Cutlery Co Ltd, Broomhall Street. Export markets in the late 1930s included Australia, where Richards advertised stainless kitchen cutlery. In the war, the Richartzs were interned; so, too, was Muller, though he was released in 1940 to organise Richards Bros’ switchover to spanners, bayonets, and military knives. Its factories in Broomhall Street and Soho Street were damaged in the blitz. In 1945, the owners incorporated the business as Richards Bros & Sons (1946) Ltd. They built a new factory on a redevelopment site bounded by Moore Street, Charter Row, and Fitzwilliam Gate. ‘When completed, the building ... was easily the largest, most modern and best-equipped cutlery factory in Sheffield, possibly the world’ (Taylor, 19902). In 1947, £125,000 preference and £130,000 ordinary shares were offered to the public. Paul became chairman and managing director; Stephan was finance director; and Muller the technical director. Muller was a keen advocate of health and safety at work, besides avidly studying cutlery technology. Pocket knives, kitchen knives, and scissors were mass produced. For example, a die-casting plant was installed for making scissors parts in their thousands. The firm’s pocket knives were eventually blanked out from sheet steel and had celluloid handles, which were often garishly decorated. Richards’ pocket knives were a world away from nineteenth-century Sheffield products. Yet these knives sold in their thousands (even millions) to a public who now cared more about price than craftsmanship. They sold particularly well in seaside towns and to tourists. Additional trademarks included: ‘PETER PAN’, ‘SPEEDWAY’, ‘GOLDEN AGE’, and ‘SNIP SNAP’. By 1960, Richards’ may have employed about 700, making it the largest cutlery factory in Sheffield alongside Viners. Richards had swallowed some 60 per cent of the country’s pocket-knife market and it also made about 40 per cent of the UK’s scissors. Paul P. Richartz died in Sheffield on 14 August 1961. He left £80,668. Stephan took over until his retirement in 1969. He died on 17 May 1974, leaving £129,664. Muller became head of the company (now known as Richards of Sheffield Ltd). He bought the Rodgers-Wostenholm group in 1975, but two years later sold Richards to an American firm, Imperial Knife. Muller died on 2 December 1982, leaving £167,646, and was buried at Abbey Lane Cemetery. Imperial lost money and in 1982 sold out to a private English-controlled company, Western Knives. This consortium became insolvent and in 1983 Richards’ closed, with the loss of 200 jobs (Morning Telegraph [Sheffield], 27 October 1983). The assets were acquired by Meteor Industries. The Moore Street factory was demolished in 1985. ‪@RandysWSG‬ ‪@wartywarthog‬ Edited by YouCut:https://app.youcut.net/BestEditor