can anybody help me i.d. this old pocket knife?

I found a pocket knife today. looks really old and ornate. says "american knife" on one side and "U.S.G." on the other. lloks like it also may have a ruler along one edge??
here is my thread with pics on it at another forum. Any help appreciated...

[metaldetectingforum.com]

Well there is/was an AMERICAN KNIFE company. Wouldnt be surprising that it was an issued item...... people liked to whittle and play harmonicas.

For some reason, im thinking WWI

Don't have a prayer but seems to have held up real well....In my boyhood days harmonicas and pocket knifes were the rage...Every old yard usually has one or two...

Way to go on the finds. It pays to be persistent when locating an absentee owner. Some day I hope to find a readable large sent up here.

Tom

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In a democracy, it is difficult to win fellow citizens over to your own side, or to build public support to remedy injustices that remain all too real when you fundamentally misunderstand how they see the world.

Thats old...

American Knife was from about 1849 to about 1875 or so..

Your marked U.S.G. is probably a Government issue piece..

Ive dug that type out of civil war camps...just like that..I dug one with all the president's listed on it up till Lincoln...16 of them 4 on one end 4 on the other then flip it over and 4 on one end and 4 on the other...it was of the same metal and shape as your Knife..

I would bet your knife having the U.S.G. abbreviation would be around the indian wars time or so..

Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

Nice finds

I've dug that same ACME lock just a couple yrs ago on an 1850s/60s site.

Thanks guys! Thanks for the added info. I had a couple pm and tell me they thought the knife may be civil war but no matter what it is, it was my favorite find for the day. The acme lock I did some looking online and looks like the RFD may stand for Rural Freight Delivery and from what I gather was possibly used to lock a mailbox in the mid 1800s? The largies are cool and I know I should be happy with them but I reallly wish I would find more of an assortment of coins. I have found a bunch of the largies over the last couple years. I need to get them out and count them up but I know its well over 20. I am in a good area though which is good. The road that backs up to my property is called Waynes trace Road. Its a pretty old area....I would love to discover where his camp was... I found an old newspaprer clippping from 1826 which stated it was just off the road...four mile creek is within eye sight from my backyard...

Four Mile Creek aKer a famous soldier of this community--General Anthony Wayne.' Camp Anthony Wayne is located but a short distance from the old Wayne's Trace Road, which was the first military road in Ohio, if not the first real road in the'state. Originally laid out by the army of General St. Clair, it was remade and improved by Wayne's army, and became the thoroughfare in the £innl victorious advance of (he United States army against the Indians,