Lee Jr. , Olsen

Moran, Randall, Ruana, Morseth, Gerber, Buck, Merle Seguine, and Lee Olsen, Jr. were listed in Ken Warner’s 1966 article “The Best Knives Made” in the 20th Edition of Gun Digest. This article is credited with “jump starting” the custom knife industry. Page 171 of The Story of Knife Steel, Dr. Larrin Thomas cited this quotation: “After Warner’s article, B.R. Hughes said, “Almost overnight dozens of other knife makers emerged, practically from nowhere. Between the years 1966 and 1971, we examined the work of approximately seventy-five knifemakers, less than ten of whom we had heard of in 1965.” Warner praised Lee Olsen, Jr. knives writing “Lee Olsen, Jr., makes a line of personally designed sportsmen’s knives in the family cutlery factory in Michigan. All are sharply modern in line, guardless, tremendously stout knives of honest steel and hardwood. Olsen lets the mill do the work* and makes his knives by the stock removal method. Prices are not cheap.” (*By eliminating the time-consuming step of annealing required of a forged blade). Captioned under the photos of the knives he added, “Lee Olsen’s designs, stripped of “unessential” guards, the models shown are almost unbreakable, comfortable in the hand.” These knives were stamped: ‘LEE JR.’ over H.C.,MICH (see photo below). The Olsen name was not used on these early knives. His brother Paul was managing Olsen knives from its beginning (1950) until he left in 1954 per his obituary. While I have not been able to verify it, it seems highly likely Lee Jr. was running a custom knife business, separate from Olsen Knives but working out of the Olsen family factory. However, these are the knives that solidified Olsen Knives Co.’s reputation within the custom knife community.