Identifying inherited knives

L

lee33lyn

Joined
Sep 7, 2023
Messages
29
Guys, I'm new to the forum and inherited quite a few knives. Where would you start in trying to identifying them. One is a vintage bayonet, many old hickory knives, many old looking daggers.
Would you post pictures so this site? What would you reccommend?
Thanks for your input.
Also, glad to have found the site.
Lee
 
I would also suggest posting individual knife photos. It is a lot easier to talk about a knife when we don't have to say "the green one, 2nd from the left, on the next to bottom row...." It is much easier and less confusing to say "the knife shown on post #12 is a...."

n2s
 
Inherited names are often very interesting. I inherited a bunch of knives from my grandparents, and almost none of them were name brand, but they were all interesting for their own reasons.
 
Images need to be clear and the stampings n the blades need to be readable. Many knives look the same because they were made by different factories so any help in identifying them with markings will help you.
 
Smaug said:
Inherited names are often very interesting. I inherited a bunch of knives from my grandparents, and almost none of them were name brand, but they were all interesting for their own reasons.
Click to expand...
Back in the day, companies often made a version of their product for a specific store. I have a bolt action .22 rifle from around 1900 that is a "Gamble Stores" Frontier. Its actually a Savage 85 and it took a ton of research to figure it out. It was my great-grandfathers. I also have my grandfather's 12 ga shotgun, a Montgomery Ward Westernfield, which is a Mossberg 500 basically.

Its interesting how things used to be done.
 
Some of the knives have a lite coating of rust. Would you guys recommend soaking the blade in vinegar. Some of the rust may obscure any markings they may have.
 
lee33lyn said:
Some of the knives have a lite coating of rust. Would you guys recommend soaking the blade in vinegar. Some of the rust may obscure any markings they may have.
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Don't do anything to the knives until you know what they are. If they are valuable, any amateur attempt at cleaning or restoring them could significantly reduce their value. If they are valuable, any cleaning or restoration should be done by a professional.

Do not use vinegar on them, if the blades are carbon steel it will patina them and turn the blades black.
 
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As for the rust....what kilgar said,maybe a "light wipe down w/ oil to remove/stop any further rust....don't get carried away with it....welcome&good luck!
 
Let’s find out what they are first. We can then discuss how you might preserve them or whether they would even be worth the effort. It is far better to keep them as they are for now, since the item‘s value can be damaged by cleaning. For example, removing the rust from the tang of a Japanese sword can cost you most of its collector value. With Japanese swords the rust is one of the key factors used to help validate ancient swords.

If the collection has survived this far it can probably keep for a few more days. We have all seen rust before so we should be able to handle seeing it.:rolleyes:

n2s
 
Been trying upload pics, Guess I need to take a IMGUR class.
Also, I say inheirted knives loosely. There are no illusion these are worth much.
 
If you have an Imgur account, just upload the pictures, copy the BBCode url of the picture you want to post and paste it here.
The url will look like the code below, enclosed by IMG tags
Code: 
[img]https://i.imgur.com/wK5VXmS.jpg[/img]
for example will produce this picture
wK5VXmS.jpg
 
Ok, I think I got it. This is knife number one. Its the largest, only reason I started with it.
I'm not happy with the quality of the pics but will post some better ones.
There are no names or numbers I can see.
Can you tell me the knifes purpose other than horror movies?


lu53dPZ.jpg
z5nzaAA.jpg
9UY2BYU.jpg
yp5MU0c.jpg
 
lee33lyn said:
Ok, I think I got it. This is knife number one. Its the largest, only reason I started with it.
I'm not happy with the quality of the pics but will post some better ones.
There are no names or numbers I can see.
Can you tell me the knifes purpose other than horror movies?


lu53dPZ.jpg
z5nzaAA.jpg
9UY2BYU.jpg
yp5MU0c.jpg
Click to expand...
This is a traditional bolo machete. It is both an agricultural tool and a weapon. It is used in Southeastern Asia if I'm not mistaken.
 
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