Korean War officer's 1951 military issue Flint-Edge

[xrayoneone]

They were OD green but paint means nothing. When you use them obviously the paint wears away. When you are getting inspected everything gets a nice new coat of paint. There is no paint on either of them now.

 

[grafton]

Neat axe. Paint means something in terms of value, depending on the buyer. A lot of people that are into axes now prefer the bare wood and steel look over O.D. paint so that is one buyer but there is another who wants something as close to original as possible. There are a lot of military axes that have just a few remnants of original paint but the ones that have almost no paint loss would be more valuable to a military collector or collector wanting one in close to unused condition. Not that you or anyone was looking to sell one at the moment but we are only really caretakers of this stuff anyway. There will be many more people that will own these axes down the line...so yeah, paint can mean something just like a label or packaging can mean something. The story, history, sheath and photo add provenance value to that axe as well. It would be a good idea to write up a summary about the axe and document the conversations you have had with the owner and keep it with the axe. Otherwise that history may be lost.