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A big difference between 100 years ago and now is that people did not collect knives then the way they do now. To a modern collector, the difference between a "sole authorship knife" and "handmade knife" and a "semiproduction" or "production" knife can be huge.
100 years ago knives were almost exclusively tools. You either bought a tool (knife) that was made in the big city with modern equipment, or you bought it locally made by a blacksmith. There wasn't that big of a distinction. Then, to pay thousands of dollars for a knife just because it had certain materials and had someone's name on it was unheard of. Really, that development has only arisen in the last 30 years or so.
Because of the disparity in how knives are made, and who uses/collects them, definitions are needed.
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