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Utility Knife and Tooled-Leather Sheath
Object/Artifact
Knife: A single-edged steel knife with a broad-bellied blade rising to an upswept (trailing) point, the spine curving up at the tip. The blade is hand-sharpened and heavily worn, with a mottled gray patina, surface pitting, and dark staining; there is no fuller and no visible maker's mark. The flat tang is sandwiched by two wood handle scales — dark/blackened with age and use — secured by metal rivets (a bright brass-colored rivet at the heel and at least one more along the grip), with a rounded butt showing wear to bare wood. Construction is utilitarian and hand-finished, consistent with a shop-made or repurposed kitchen/work knife. Sheath: A close-fitting leather sheath tapering to a point, the front face decorated with stamped/tooled foliate ornament (rosettes, flower heads, and leafy vines) over an oxblood-brown surface. Near the throat, a leather retention keeper/tab is fixed by two metal rivets. The reverse shows a central seam closed with a running stitch in tan thread; the leather is crazed and cracked from age. A faint embossed mark reads "HABANA".
2025.2.22
Obtained in Cuba by Anna Veltfort and brought to New York City with her when she moved back to the US. Personal Effect Used by Anna Veltfort during the Escuela al Campo while studying at the University of Havana.
The knife and sheath were Anna Veltfort's personal kit during the Escuela al Campo, the Cuban program combining study with agricultural labor that sent secondary and university students to rural camps for usually 45-day periods each course, intended to raise farm output and form the revolutionary "hombre nuevo."
Anna Veltfort collection
2025.2
Anna Veltfort
Gift
1960s
Maker/Attribution: Unmarked and unidentified for both pieces. The knife is hand-finished, likely Cuban shop-made or a repurposed kitchen knife (tentative); the sheath is artisanal tooled leather, the floral stamping typical of Latin American leatherwork — Cuban manufacture plausible but unconfirmed (tentative). The two were evidently paired in use rather than made as a set. Date: Documented in use late 1960s–1971. Manufacture date undetermined for both; the knife in particular may predate its EAC use (flag — undatable from the objects alone). Place: Used in Cuba; place of manufacture uncertain for both components.
Inscription
(illegible) HABANA 11
Spanish
Havana 11
Embossed
3.8 cm
31.5 cm
Sheath: 27.5 x 6 x 3
(1) Knife: steel blade + riveted wood-scale handle. (2) Sheath: tooled-leather body + riveted retention keeper.
Metal
Wood
Leather
Knife: forged/ground steel (blade and tang), wood (handle scales), metal rivets (brass/steel). Sheath: vegetable-tanned tooled leather, metal rivets, cotton or linen thread.
Fair
Anna Veltfort
owner
Escuela al Campo
Knife and sheath are treated as one set but appear separately made.