The lock out ultimately took its toll on Camillus as customers dried up and the company subsequently filed for bankruptcy and closed on February 28, 2007. In November 2006, the striking employees ultimately accepted the original contract offer but the company only retained 15 of the 78 union members and laid off the rest. In response, management locked the workers out for several months. Workers didn’t agree and the company was subject to a months long strike. A few months later, Camillus’ management proposed large wage and benefit cuts. As a result, employees implemented a four-day workweek after the normal factory shutdown at Christmas 2005. Since the turn of the century, Camillus Cutlery saw its revenue decline due to stiff overseas competition and allegedly poor management practices. That same year, Camillus began a partnership with custom Knifemaker Darryl Ralph to produce a line of titanium framed tactical folding knives. In 2001, Camillus collaborated with custom Knifemaker Jerry Fisk, the only Knifemaker to be declared a Living National Treasure, to produce a Bowie knife. This Boulder, Colorado company had been making knives since 1896. In 1991, Camillus acquired Western Cutlery Company. In the 1960s, Camillus was sold to the Baer family of New York City. After the Vietnam War, the company continued its growth by adding more new pieces to their already wide product range. ĭuring the Vietnam War, Camillus again manufactured a large number of knives for the armed forces, for instance a pilot survival knife, a USMC KA-BAR combat knife and a four bladed utility knife. It introduced many new products, and in 1947, Camillus began manufacturing a full line of official folding knives for the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). It also began manufacturing private label products for Sears, Craftsman, Woolworth and many others.Īfter World War II, Camillus was quick to shift back to civilian production. In the 1920s, the knife manufacturer introduced stainless steel to its production, and started making collectible character knives, which honoured famous people such as George Washington, Babe Ruth, and Buck Rogers. The company also manufactured marlinspikes, surgical scalpels, and a folding knife/ spoon combination for the Red Cross in those years. The company even built a dormitory to house its German workers.ĭuring World War I, Camillus shifted production to support the Allied forces. By 1910, the Camillus Cutlery Company was producing close to a million knives a year and had about 200 employees, many of them German immigrants. They bought new machinery, such as steam-driven drop forge hammers and fly presses and they adopted new techniques, like using alumina grinding wheels. With Adolph Kastor in the driver’s seat, the company started to expand. Eventually, his search led him to Charles Sherwood and his small knife manufacturing business in Camillus. The only solution Kastor saw was to manufacture knives domestically. In 1897, when the Dingley Tariff was enacted, the knives became too expensive to import. on Canal Street in New York City, where he imported and distributed German-made knives. Only a few weeks later, Adolph Kastor started his own company, Adolph Kastor & Bros. Due to poor sales figures, Meyer & Kastor had to close its doors in September 1876. In 1873, Bodenheim, Meyer & Company lost one of its founders and restructured as Meyer & Kastor. He was first put in charge of cow chains but gradually worked his way up to the firearms and cutlery department. The 14-year-old Adolph Kastor (1856–1946), son of a Jewish family from Wattenheim, Germany, immigrated to New York in 1870 where he started to work for his uncle Aaron Kastor in his hardware supply business, Bodenheim, Meyer & Company.
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