Help ID my Hawksbill

S

sacmer

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Jun 11, 2023
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I picked up this slip joint hawksbill knife 5 or more years ago, where, garage sale??? It was quite dirty but the red scales just looked cool, and vintage? Cleaned it up. It has absolutely no manufactures marks that I can see. Does not look like anything was ground off. Assume scales are red jigged bone? Any ideas??? Thanks all in advance.

HB1.JPGHB2.JPGHB3.JPG
 
screened porch said:
The contrasting color pivot pin and bolsters give me a Pakistan vibe,
Click to expand...
Respectfully disagree. Contrasting pin/bolster is reminescent of the Old Timer 5OT/6OT/7OT/8OT, both pre and post 2004 manufacture.

No blade markings could indicate no name questionable offshore manufacture.
However, it might just be the light, but top picture looks like something  could have been ground off the tang.
Also, the Paki knives I've seen at truck stops  didn't have the edges of the bolsters (or covers) even slightly radiused. Again, it might be the lighting, but the bolsters appear to have a small radius. No way to tell of course, if factory or a previous owner took a file to them to make the knife more comfortable to use. The fitment of the parts is also better than I recall seeing on Paki knives. I am not saying you are mistaken, but the overall fit and finish is somewhat better than the Paki knives I saw.
 
I would say the scale and bolster fitment eliminate the possibility of a low-quality import. The lines and balance look like a german import to me. Perhaps a re-bladed german import?
 
I think someone has a nice looking jigged bone handle and put a new blade in it.

If it were mine, I'd have used a stainless pivot pin regardless of the bolsters material because my feeble brain can't accept that brass or nickel is fine when stainless is available.

The underblading and the thickness of the blade relative to the spring also make me think someone found or ground a replacement blade that was close enough to get their favorite knife back into action.

The way the bone is shaped is pretty nice. It doesn't look like it was hammered and cut out of car bumpers and beer cans.

Maybe it's something like a Sabre brand knife.

Just my novice two cents. Rambling mostly. 🤪
 
Thanks guys. I am leaning toward "re-blade". Rickhuf, I think you got it. The thickness of the blade does not match the spring. I looked at some of my other folders (like my Buck 110) and in all of them, the blade EXACTLY matches the spring thickness.

Just also found this picture of a German brand online. Other than the branding token, the scale pins, bolster and (in this case) brass pivot are in the same locations.
germanhawkbill.jpg
 
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Arathol said:
Frost is not exactly a "German" brand.......and every picture in this thread has Made in China all over them.....
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Exactly, they own a few German brand names and still source a few knives for those brands from Germany but even then it's questionable just how much of the manufacturing is done in Germany.

I'm pretty confident that this knife is made in Pakistan, minus the hole in the blade and the shield this looks extremely close to a frost cutlery " 1400 series " as they call it.
They are made in Pakistan of " German stainless " whatever that actually means, my guess is that it's just a German steel type that doesn't actually have to come from Germany.

Whichever Pakistani factory makes the frost cutlery " 1400 series " has better quality than you typically expect from Pakistan, the ones my dad bought me from their catalog when I was a kid were all over the place but a couple of them were as good as this or better.
One was a saddle horn trapper with these same red jogged bone scales.
 
afishhunter said:
Also, the Paki knives I've seen at truck stops  didn't have the edges of the bolsters (or covers) even slightly radiused. Again, it might be the lighting, but the bolsters appear to have a small radius. No way to tell of course, if factory or a previous owner took a file to them to make the knife more comfortable to use. The fitment of the parts is also better than I recall seeing on Paki knives.
Click to expand...
The frost Cutlery " 1400 series " knives are slightly better , at least they can accidentally be decent-ish once in awhile.
my dad bought me a 6 knife set of them from their catalog when I was about 14 and a couple of them including a red saddle horn trapper with the same red jigged bone scales were pretty good for a Pakistani knife.
The other was a little purple bone straight razor inspired knife.


This could still be made in China, but to me it looks like it came from the same factory as the Pakistani frost cutlerys.
 
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