Dinner knife. Straight, silver-plated steel blade with rounded tip and pewter bolster soldered in place. Blade and tang are one piece of steel fitted into wooden handle with rounded sides and rounded pewter pommel cap at butt. Bolster and pommel cap have clover shapes inlaid into wood on front and back of handle (now missing from bolster). Blade is heavily discolored, and much of the silver plate is scraped off. Wood is cracked near areas of missing inlay.
Blade is stamped: “FRARY CUTLERY CO/PAT JULY 18,1876”
Patent:
US179927 A, July 18, 1876, John B. H. Leonard, assignor to the Frary Cutlery Company, Bridgeport, Connecticut, for “Improvement in table-cutlery”
Maker is the Frary Cutlery Company, Bridgeport, Connecticut, established in 1876 by James D. Frary, one of the founders of Landers, Frary & Clark. Frary sold the company in 1881 to Trunk, Bliss, and Healy and formed James D. Frary & Son Company.