Evaluating an old knife collection

The scout pattern is an "906 ARMY OFFICER". From the '50s/'60s. Not often found for sale. On my short list.
 
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You have some desirable knives there in what looks like fantastic condition! FIL might be surprised what they bring! I hope! Good luck!:thumbsup:
 
tryppyr said:
Thanks. Here are the marks on the four Henckels...
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That one with the two different style stamps is interesting. I'm not at all an expert or very knowledgeable, so I defer to anyone who knows more or otherwise, but my understanding is that the long armed logo tends to be older than the short armed one. Seeing one of each on the same knife makes me curious and makes me question what I think I know. :oops:

Here's are a couple of JA Henckels stamp charts that I saved from somewhere that show the difference between the 1900s long arm twin logo and the 1960s and later short armed one.

On this first one with the tan background, whoever put it together reversed the two images on the lower right. The one that says vintage is the short armed modern one and the one that says modern is the long armed vintage one, but it might be helpful to see how the stamp actually looks in metal instead of just a black on white image.

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And from Wikipedia:

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(link)
 
Yep, I had a few of these in the past. Obviously before 73 but not so old. I contacted Henckels about these knives many years ago and was told their records were very poor. I wouldn't worry about the dates since it won't matter when selling them. The stag is often quite nice and will be what attracts most of the attention. It's all bark but blocky since they don't shape it.

tryppyr said:
Okay, here are the Henckels. I only thought to include the ruler for the smallest one.
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stockman with MOP covers

tryppyr said:
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stockman w/ genuine stag covers

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dogleg whittler w/ genuine stag covers

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junior stockman with bone covers

tryppyr said:
And here are the Schrades
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And I just noticed I forgot to pull out the second (and smaller) blade on the 906.
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Looks like you already found your buyer for the red one. The other knife is a safety press button knife. These were made for many years. Looks like the stamp may be Walden era.
 
It looks like the Schrade double switch has the Walden Tang stamp, which would make it post WWII. It's a lot better looking than either of mine. When/if you sell it, be sure to mention it is the larger 3 3/4" size which seems far less common than the 3 3/8". It ought to fetch over $200 easy.
 
Looks like an excellent collection that will attract a lot of serious interest. As I said earlier, you might like to consider listing some of them on the Forum for sale thread, plenty of eager buyers here I'd think:thumbsup::)
 
I'll definitely list some here, once I have a sense for what they are worth. At the moment I am still in the fact finding phase, as I was never involved very deeply in commercial knives (apart from a nice knife or two purchased over the years).

Thanks for all the help so far. My father in law will be excited to learn there's some real value in the collection.
 
The Schrade is a rigging knife. The Primble knives are a stockman (top) and a moose (bottom). Most of the knives seem to be in the same ball park range of dates and were probably bought retail. Many knives from this time will lean more toward nice cool old knife to use rather than rare historical artifact. (fancy Sunday knife and pocket jewelry type of "use", not scraping weeds out of the cracks in the sidewalk ;) ) . There is certainly value though. Condition is important and all of these knives look completely unused and original so far.
 
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Yeah, I'd say you nailed the collection... bought at retail and rarely (if ever used), but of no historical value. They all seem to be in that category as far as I can tell. When he first gave me the tool box full of knives I assumed none would be worth more than about $25 - 50.

Here's one of the Bokers, which has 182 etched on the blade.

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That's a sportsman's knife from the same general time frame. You might also use more common terms like camp knife or utility knife or scout knife although some of those terms are more vague or not appropriate.

Very cool that's still got the tag! It's sort of a trip back in time. ;)

I agree with leghog that the value is higher than estimated. What's really special about the collection is the condition. It's the genuine thing, not fluffed and buffed like a lot of the stuff on Ebay.
 
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Likely so. I note, however, that there are some, like this one, that were simply giveaways at the time. This one has Barlow on the bolsters, but says Colonial on the tangs. Stuff like this, and the rusty ruined hulks and the souvenir knives left a rather negative first impression.

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Although souvenier and advertising knives may not be worth alot of money,they are still collected by many.
 
tryppyr said:
Yeah, I'd say you nailed the collection... bought at retail and rarely (if ever used), but of no historical value. They all seem to be in that category as far as I can tell. When he first gave me the tool box full of knives I assumed none would be worth more than about $25 - 50.

Here's one of the Bokers, which has 182 etched on the blade.

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That 182 is very nice!
I'd say most you have shown are 3- 4 times what you originally thought!:thumbsup:(75-200)
 
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