Anybody recognize this brand of corn knife and can remember who made it?

Blade was painted blue before it left the factory and only ID is CK70, stamped in handle.

Best guess is it dates back at least 50 years.

I had my very own True Temper knife about 50 years ago....and this one does look similar......but as I recall, mine actually said True Temper on the handle. And I don't remember it being painted blue.

I have a modern era Ames True Temper and is an exact twin......except for the blade. Modern era stuff is pure Chinese junk. Was not sharp when it arrived, would not take much of an edge and when you whack a tough stemmed weed with it, it bounces off.....and rounds over the edge in the process.

By comparison, this one has part of the original edge still on it and it will shave a thumbnail......and is tough enough steel you almost need to use a sharpening stone on it.

In short, the real deal........which makes me curious to know who made it.

I was never a fan of using a corn knife either, but like a prisoner on a road gang, as a kid growing up on a farm I never had much say in what I was told to be doing. But like most of us, it turns out I lived to tell about it.

The knife selection back then was either this, or a thin, light weight turned up nose machete looking thing.......and I found this style to work better for me. Had a good balance to it and the wide end gave it enough weight out on the end to chop through the weeds. The one I had would take and edge.....which made the hard chopping go easier. Mine also cost 3X what the cheap ones did. I bought mine myself........and yes, off the shelf it would put a blister on your hand. Got a couple pretty bad ones the first day I used it.......so took a wood rasp and sandpaper to the handle to smooth out the sharp edges and no more blisters after that.

Biggest use back then was when we kids (and parents too) walked the soybean fields to hack out the weeds the herbicides of the day didn't get. The worst were the wild sunflowers. The stalks on those could get to nearly 2" in diameter and 8 feet + tall. They were big enough to knock out sickle sections on a combine and then had to be ground through the combine cylinder....doing a number on the rasp bars and concaves. So they had to be hacked out or else. Plus we (meaning parents) wanted to keep the fields clean of all the rest to keep the landlords happy.

This was never much fun, but about the time I turned 16, this thing turned around for me. When the older siblings had moved on, we were left short handed for the job and in looking around for more help, it arrived in the form of similar aged girls from town....about 4 to 6 of them each day.....or what could ride in the front seat and back of a pickup truck. They would cut weeds in the morning, then hang out at the pool all afternoon. In addition to cutting weeds alongside these girls (who mostly wore swimsuit tops to work on their tans), my other job was to go to town at 7 AM to pick them all up......and then around noon, load them up and take them all home. That is what you call a silver lining!

It is now 50 years later and I'm still on a first name basis with many of those girls.

Our machete looking knives came from Orscheln farm and home.......might have been military surplus in origin, as they came with green canvass sheath........never saw one that was anything but commercial made. I have another old vintage one made by Atkins, outfit from Indiana that made hand saws. It is similar, but different.........and BTW, logo on the Atkins handle does ID it as a "corn knife"......and not a machete.

As for the girls.......that wasn't my idea, but once I realized the possibilities.....I was all for it.....for a couple reasons. Hanging around a bunch of girls for starters, but lining out 6 to 8 girls meant that nasty job was going to go faster and be over with sooner.  BTW, girls saw it as the female equivalent of the city boys who were hauling hay. And like the boys who hauled hay.......some only lasted one day. The ones who stayed with it for the long haul were generally not the cheerleaders.....if you get my drift.

Other farm related job that both boys and girls worked at side by side was detasseling seed corn.

Mixed emotions when someone invented Roundup and a tractor with wick applicator replaced the girls and corn knives.......on balance, Roundup was better.....and when it can be used.....still is. But that trusty corn knife remains a quick and dirty option when it's not.

 I remember a couple years we cut the outside rows next to the pasture fence and just pitched the stalks over to the cows... was fun watching them old cows shaking them stalks trying to bust the ears off. 

  We had several knives for cutting corn stalks but the faorite was one that looked likeit had been cut out of a saw blade and was very sharp had a curved one and a machete looking one but the first one was the best. Also cut weeds and brush under the fence with that one...