Old knives restoration/collecting. Post pictures

[Sgtfury488]

I have been restoring old knives for about four years now. I know there's a lot of people who dont approve of restoring antiques but I'm sure as me there are just as many who do. Ive always tried to give old knives a new life whilst leaving some of that old pitted rustic look and some of the history. this is a list of some of the knives i am restoring. Please post pics if some of your old knives or knives that you are restoring. Or any questions about knives that you want to restore or just knives in general. I'm a super fan of old knives. My favorite are leather stacked fixed blades early 1900s.

Here are some that I am currently working on.
An old kabar 1232 USA hunting knife general restoration. and an old premier lifetime h20 Germany hunting knife repairing the handle and fixing the
Pommel.


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[Terry Soloman]

Show us a before and after!

 

[gunsil]

I agree with Terry, let's see more. Any Kabar with model numbers on the blade was made after about 1970 and the Premier is 1960s-1970s, neither are early 1900s. Any Kabar marked in lower case letters is 1952 or newer, with model number no older than 1969, and the ones marked KA-BAR caps and hyphen are 1923-1952 with several attributes that can narrow the date down closer. I have been collecting antique knives for sixty years, have over a thousand, I am not a proponent of "restoration" except if a knife is too far gone to be in collectable condition and is being redone to be a user. Cleaning/restoring an antique knife usually lowers it's collector value. Site is too slow today, I can't upload photos, will try later. Tried a different browser, speed back up, here's a few knife pics. These are some pics of my 16' display at a knife show. Most for sale, a few for show and tell. Not much newer than WW2 there, and they go back to the mid 1800s.



Dang I like old knives!!

 

[smallfoot]

Here's a before and after I did for a friend!

 

[gunsil]

Nice job on the switch! Where was that one made, most don't have the saber ground blade or did you put that grind on? Sgtfury, let's see more pics please! Must be some other knife guys here, let's see more knives!!

 

[Sgtfury488]

One of the things that I do is remove surface rust the reason that is still there is because I havnt done anything with that knife yet.

 

[smallfoot]

Nice job on the switch! Where was that one made, most don't have the saber ground blade or did you put that grind on? Sgtfury, let's see more pics please! Must be some other knife guys here, let's see more knives!!

We never made much headway on IDing the maker. The tang was not marked. No telltale traits that anybody could point out.The top two pix are "as found". There was nothing left of scales. The scale pins were copper and I reused them on the rebuild. The rest of this knife was steel. I was able to get it back to functioning shape. I knew going in there was no getting rid of all the dings so when it was time to put it back together, I used an old whitetail shed that was oxidized to chalky white. It went well with the knife. I took the knife completely apart, re-heat treated and tempered the spring, cleaned and flattened all the needed surfaces as best I could. It was huge. Just shy of 13" It was leverlock in design,but many countries had them. The blade shape was unlike any design of German, Italian, or Spanish. After the beating it took and survived I pushed the idea out of my head that it was maybe Pakastani creation that was intentionally aged. There were enough wear marks on that knife to indicate heavy use before it got rusty.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

I agree with Terry, let's see more. Any Kabar with model numbers on the blade was made after about 1970 and the Premier is 1960s-1970s, neither are early 1900s. Any Kabar marked in lower case letters is 1952 or newer, with model number no older than 1969, and the ones marked KA-BAR caps and hyphen are 1923-1952 with several attributes that can narrow the date down closer. I have been collecting antique knives for sixty years, have over a thousand, I am not a proponent of "restoration" except if a knife is too far gone to be in collectable condition and is being redone to be a user. Cleaning/restoring an antique knife usually lowers it's collector value. Site is too slow today, I can't upload photos, will try later. Tried a different browser, speed back up, here's a few knife pics. These are some pics of my 16' display at a knife show. Most for sale, a few for show and tell. Not much newer than WW2 there, and they go back to the mid 1800s.

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Dang I like old knives!!

I’d love to see some of that in person!
Your gun collection is probably as incredible or more so?

 

[gunsil]

Imaudigger, no, my knife collection outshines the long arms I have and I don't have a pistol permit so no "modern" pistols. I do have a few nice CW guns and some nice Winchesters, some may out value many of the knives, but I have some rare and beautiful knives. Smallfoot, I was thinking Japanese when I saw the switch.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

I wanted this to be in restorable condition so bad.
1850's to 1870's

It's just not meant to be.

 

[Toecutter]

Gunsil in your first pic middle case tords the top what is that leather looking case for?

 

[Sgtfury488]

I agree with Terry, let's see more. Any Kabar with model numbers on the blade was made after about 1970 and the Premier is 1960s-1970s, neither are early 1900s. Any Kabar marked in lower case letters is 1952 or newer, with model number no older than 1969, and the ones marked KA-BAR caps and hyphen are 1923-1952 with several attributes that can narrow the date down closer. I have been collecting antique knives for sixty years, have over a thousand, I am not a proponent of "restoration" except if a knife is too far gone to be in collectable condition and is being redone to be a user. Cleaning/restoring an antique knife usually lowers it's collector value. Site is too slow today, I can't upload photos, will try later. Tried a different browser, speed back up, here's a few knife pics. These are some pics of my 16' display at a knife show. Most for sale, a few for show and tell. Not much newer than WW2 there, and they go back to the mid 1800s.

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Dang I like old knives!!

That is a beautiful collection. I agree that most collector knives should remain unaltered. About 90% of what I do is refurbish knives for people who want to keep using them mainly hunting knives. I do have a few that I havnt and don't plan on altering. Also I didn't mean to imply that the two knives mentioned above were early 1900s I was just letting everyone know that that was the era of knife that I found the most interesting. Sorry for the confusion there.

 

[Sgtfury488]

I agree with Terry, let's see more. Any Kabar with model numbers on the blade was made after about 1970 and the Premier is 1960s-1970s, neither are early 1900s. Any Kabar marked in lower case letters is 1952 or newer, with model number no older than 1969, and the ones marked KA-BAR caps and hyphen are 1923-1952 with several attributes that can narrow the date down closer. I have been collecting antique knives for sixty years, have over a thousand, I am not a proponent of "restoration" except if a knife is too far gone to be in collectable condition and is being redone to be a user. Cleaning/restoring an antique knife usually lowers it's collector value. Site is too slow today, I can't upload photos, will try later. Tried a different browser, speed back up, here's a few knife pics. These are some pics of my 16' display at a knife show. Most for sale, a few for show and tell. Not much newer than WW2 there, and they go back to the mid 1800s.

View attachment 1843677View attachment 1843678View attachment 1843675View attachment 1843679View attachment 1843676

Dang I like old knives!!

That is a beautiful collection. I agree that most collector knives should remain unaltered. About 90% of what I do is refurbish knives for people who want to keep using them mainly hunting knives. I do have a few that I havnt and don't plan on altering. Also I didn't mean to imply that the two knives mentioned above were early 1900s I was just letting everyone know that that was the era of knife that I found the most interesting. Sorry for the confusion there.

 

[RustyGold]

I have a collection of Western Knives and some advertising from when Western was in Colorado. Love them but have to let them go.

 

[gunsil]

Gunsil in your first pic middle case tords the top what is that leather looking case for?

The green leather case has the gold Girl Scout emblem on it and holds a George Schrade manufactured camping/eating set with a folding knife, folding fork, and small spoon. Same company made one for the BSA too with a brown leather case, the GSA ones are harder to find. I was able to dig it out out for a photo. The GSA ones had a green sheet metal piece on the knife while the BSA version had red painted metal. (My BSA ones have sold) Sorry, you have to click on the photo to enlarge to get it upright, seems to only happen with pics taken with my Iphone, it is upright on my computer.

 

[Sgtfury488]

This is an interesting one I got a while back. I don't know anything about it it seems to be pretty decent steel the pummel is solid brass and the guard is hollow brass filled with lead. No stamps or manufacturers marks on it anywhere.

 

[Toecutter]

The green leather case has the gold Girl Scout emblem on it and holds a George Schrade manufactured camping/eating set with a folding knife, folding fork, and small spoon. Same company made one for the BSA too with a brown leather case, the GSA ones are harder to find. I was able to dig it out out for a photo. The GSA ones had a green sheet metal piece on the knife while the BSA version had red painted metal. (My BSA ones have sold) Sorry, you have to click on the photo to enlarge to get it upright, seems to only happen with pics taken with my Iphone, it is upright on my computer.

Very cool never seen one, thank you for sharing..