3 new finds at flea market

P

PCL

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May 25, 2012
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I stopped by a local flea market yesterday and found these, not much there I may have been to late in the day at 11am, lol. The handles on the camp knife are bone and I do not know if the tang stamp is french or german or english.








 
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Congrats, PCL! :thumbup::thumbup:
I'd sure consider it a very good day if I located those at the flea market! :cool:
How old do you think the Imperial with the tip bolsters is? Is that the typical "shell construction" common for Imperials?

- GT
 
That pearl handle knife has celluloid covers. They are out-gassing, judging from the looks of the blades (not corroded below the liner/scales.
Save the knife and remove the celluloid.
In the mean time, KEEP IT AWAY FROM ALL OTHER KNIVES! The out-gassing WILL damage any knives near that one!
 
From tang stamp chart, 1930-1936. And what is out-gassing caused by and what will it do to other knives? Just read up on it I have two celluloid knives that I will keep from others and in individual containers, thanks for the heads up.
 
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PCL said:
And what is out-gassing caused by and what will it do to other knives?
Click to expand...

The scales (or "covers") on your knife are made of celluloid, an early form of plastic. Given time, celluloid frequently decomposes and in so doing releases nitric acid. The acid attacks the rest of the knife, and it will attack any other metallic objects in close proximity. This is happening to your knife. There is no known way to reverse the decomposition process. It's a "save what you can" situation

afishhunter said:
That pearl handle knife has celluloid covers. They are out-gassing, judging from the looks of the blades (not corroded below the liner/scales.
Save the knife and remove the celluloid.
In the mean time, KEEP IT AWAY FROM ALL OTHER KNIVES! The out-gassing WILL damage any knives near that one!
Click to expand...
What he said.
 
Nice camp knife. That looks more like horn, than bone, to me. But still nice either way!

Ditto on the comments about the Imperial regarding the cell, although that one doesn't seem to be going that hard, mainly just shrinking of the covers. The cracked ice tends to be more stable than other cell colors, but they are all potentially waiting to go bad.
 
Too bad about celluloid. I get paranoid and think that all my possible synthetics are definitely cel. I hate to have to chop it off my Bruckmanns, but I think early writhing is why they have warped liners (thanks to glennbad for the recent heads-up).
 
I meant to say horn,lol. I think since the celluloid on the Imperial has lasted this long and only caused patina discoloration so far, I'm going to leave them on the knife. The tang stamp is in the years when my father was born so I'll let them stay. But will keep it from other knives. Thanks very much for the out-gassing info. I wonder what that knife cost back then, my fathers father was a poor dirt farmer in the Smokey Mountains at then, never owned a vehicle and my dad said they were to poor to be depressed during the depression, lol. So my grandfather probably would never have gotten one.
 
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