In 1892 George Schrade designed, developed and patented the first push-button automatic knife, and for that — the brand itself tells it — many called him the father of the automatic knife. Twelve years later, in 1904, he set up the Schrade Cutlery Company and devoted the rest of his life to it: four decades adding designs until his death, in 1940. That button still holds the most visible spot in the house: the parallelogram button at the centre of the Schrade icon is that same mechanism, said in a drawing.

What came afterwards the brand does not tell, and it is not filled in here. Its history page jumps from 1940 to what it calls a return 'through the front door' to the knife world, 'completing a full rebrand and a commitment to quality'. Those are its words, and they describe a refounding, not a production line that never stopped. What can be verified about the present is this: Schrade is a brand of American Outdoor Brands, its catalogues are signed by AOB Products Company, the warranty service sits in Columbia, Missouri, and that warranty is limited lifetime on all its knives and tools.

The catalogue is ordered in three classes named after the pack. Alpha: steels like S35VN, forged carbon-fibre handles, made in the United States. Beta: D2 steel, made or assembled there. Delta: the bulk of the range, with AUS-8 and AUS-10 as the minimum steel declared by the house. It is a hierarchy of material, not of finish, and it lets you read a spec sheet before touching the knife.

Of what crosses customs to get here, nothing is an automatic knife: what arrives is field gear. Hand axes with a ferro rod in the sheath, full-tang fixed-blade knives, pocket knives, multi-tools and a spark rod. Part of it is cross-checked by number against the 2024 catalogue; the rest are earlier models the manufacturer no longer lists, and for those what the shop's product page publishes rules.