About Our Brands

 TIDIOUTE CUTLERY

Approximately 25 miles east of Titusville, alongside the Allegheny River is located the small town of Tidioute, Pa.  Unknown to most folks in the area and even some local residents, is the significant cutlery history of the town in the era from the 1890’s to the 1930’s. Over that short span of years, five separate cutlery manufactories produced knives that today are sought after by collectors who covet the high quality and rare Tidioute brand of these old knives.  After 90 years, we have brought back the Tidioute name with our Tidioute Cutlery branded classic pocket knives. Much like the original Tidioute Cutlery Co. of circa 1909 to 1916, our new knives have blades made with high quality American made 1095 carbon steel and handled with a variety of materials that include the traditional materials, North American cattle bone and Ebony wood.  Also used is the unique and distinctly colored and figured Acrylic Acetate. A tough synthetic but not to be confused with the cellulose acetate very often used in the original Tidioute Cutlery. Like all Great Eastern Cutlery knives, the Tidioute Cutlery brand knives are classically styled and of exceptional craftsmanship and quality. They are good enough to collect, but our emphasis with this brand is with function and performance rather than cosmetic beauty. We have intentionally manufactured them for those individuals who need a tough and durable pocket knife to carry and use on a day to day basis. Ounce for ounce, we feel they are the best buy of any traditional pocket knife made in the USA today. When you pull out your pocket knife, it should say Tidioute Cutlery.

  NORTHFIELD UN-X-LD

The original Northfield Knife Company was incorporated and operated in Connecticut from 1858 to 1926. Their UN-X-LD Branded knives are highly collectable today. In 2006 Great Eastern Cutlery registered the unused Northfield UN-X-LD trademark, strictly to be used on only the most premium GEC traditional pocket knives. These new classic UN-X-LD knives have all the intricate cosmetic tooling and finishing you would expect to see on well made early 1900’s era pocket knives. The back springs and blades are strictly made with 1095 carbon steel, with all the blades stamp marked and finished to a mirror polish. The master blades are fitted with forged straight nail pulls and cut swaging. All the bolsters are coined and typically decorated with dimples, lines and angled cuts.  The handle covers are processed here at the GEC Bone Works and are of exotic materials such as India Stag Antler, Woolly Mammoth Ivory, Cocobolo Wood, Snake Wood, and North American Cattle Shin Bone with intricately cut textured surfaces. The new Northfield UN-X-LD knives rival the originals in materials and craftsmanship. They are always made in limited quantities with a portion of each run being serialized. Because of their quality and value they have become the most collectable factory knife made today.

GEC

With our two other brands, “NORTHFIELD UN-X-LD and TIDIOUTE CUTLERY”, our emphasis is on making knives much like those made during the golden age of pocket knives, the early 1900’s.  They are made using mostly very traditional handle materials with blades made from 1095 carbon steel, quite often referred to as “your grand dads steel”.  When properly heat treated and ground, 1095 carbon steel will produce a very tough blade of high polish that will easily take and hold an extremely keen edge.  But it will always have one drawback. It will stain and rust. That is not a problem for many but to satisfy the need for a knife that will not stain and rust we have our Great Eastern Cutlery line of knives with blades and springs made of stainless steel. This brand, also made in classic pocket knife designs and of exceptional craftsmanship, has blades of 440C stainless Steel. It was not until the 1950’s when stainless steel started catching on with pocket knife manufacturers and consumers.  440C stainless was one of the first stainless blade steels designed for the cutlery market. It is still being used and is still one of the very best stainless cutlery steels. It attains a very high hardness when heat treated. With it’s blend of alloys that make it exceptionally tough, it can be brought to an edge easier that tool steels and can be mirror polished as good as any, and will not rust. We try to keep our Great Eastern Cutlery knives as All American as possible by using American cattle bone, American elk antlers and American hardwood for handle materials.  They are easily recognizable with the Great Eastern Cutlery acorn shield.

FARM & FIELD TOOL

All of us here at Great Eastern Cutlery are very proud of the quality products we manufacture. Our love of traditional pocket knives has influenced our designs and dictated our manufacturing processes. We use some semi-advanced technological manufacturing methods, but the majority cf our processes are old-school hands on labor intensive manufacturing. We feel that is the best way to achieve an authentic reproduction pocketknife. Unfortunately, our style of manufacturing results in a somewhat higher price range of products. Any body who has toured the GEC plant will attest to the numerous processes required to produce our quality knives, and will verify that they are well worth the price.
They have become a favorite among collectors, however we build every GEC knife to be carried and used. From day one that has been our goal, but we understand when our customers feel that the price may be too high for a knife or that they paid too much for the knife and wish to preserve it rather than blemish it through use. We often hear from customers who are disappointed that we do not offer a line of inexpensive knives for day to day, hour to hour use. ln particular, they are not looking for the shiny, natural handled work of art, but a tough, durable everyday, throw in the toolbox tool.
Well we heard it enough that we decided to try it. We didn’t have any misconceptions that we could compete with China when it comes to pricing. Because of our methods of manufacturing and the fact that we manufacture in the USA, it is impossible for GEC to produce a substantially inexpensive knife, but we recently introduced the new Redneck Farm Tool #71 Bull Nose pattern with Delrin handles.
lt is our attempt to make a strictly user knife at a reduced price that is still GEC quality built. We did so by utilizing innovative processes, less expensive materials, and far fewer labor operations. Price wise, it still will not compete with China but it is a bigger hit than we had expected and has reinforced our plans to offer a standard line of similar products. We branded the last run “Redneck Farm Tool” but found later a possible trade mark conflict, so in the future as we produce more products for this Line they will be branded FARM & FIELD TOOL . This is a name that we feel exemplifies our intended use of these products. On the farm or out in the field they will he tough durable tools.

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