About Camillus

Camillus has been revitalized by Acme United, which purchased its remaining stake when the company went under in 2005. Camillus Cutlery was officially re-launched in 2009 at the Las Vegas National Hardware Show on May 4, 2009, as a line of hunting and combat knives. Acme is clearly capitalizing on the name recognition associated with Camillus' rich history of knife production and they've made sure to focus on the areas that launched Camillus into the upper echelons of knife production in the mid twentieth century.

History Of Camillus

Camillus is the shorthand name for the Camillus Cutlery Company, one of the United States' oldest knife producers. The Camillus Cutlery Company opened its doors in 1876 in the city of Camillus, New York off the coast of the Erie Canal. Its founder, Charles Sherwood, opened the company using a converted grain mill as a base of operations and production before selling his brainchild to German immigrant Adolph Kastor in the early twentieth century. At that time the company produced over a dozen knife styles with its twenty cutler staff. In under a decade, Kastor expanded the company's capacity to where they had over two hundred employees and over a million knives produced annually. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century they dabbled in character knives, stainless steel production, and even provided tools and implements for the first World War. Afterwards, the company continued to grow with an emphasis on folding and pocket knives. Camillus' prosperity dwindled as foreign competition intervened and the company was forced to file for bankruptcy in 2007.

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