I broke out with the Renaissance Wax to give these three aging items some TLC.
I would guess that the German made Wusthof, (Wusthof/Dreizack), knife is in the ballpark of being 70 to 80 years old.
The only factory marking on this knife is the Wusthof Trident trademark tangstamp.
I believe it's been many, many decades since Wusthof was a maker of folding pocket knives. We all recognize the brand now as makers of quality kitchen knives and such.
The two "attitude adjuster" truncheons, (aka: nightsticks, batons, clubs), are likely just as old, or maybe older, than the knife is. It's hard for me to determine the age of such "lumber", but that would be my guess.
As for how I acquired these three items...
*The Wusthof knife was a local flea market find, and although it's in great condition, I only paid $15 for it
*The truncheon right underneath it was found on another day at the same local flea market, my paying just $10 for it
*The truncheon on the bottom was a gun show find. The vendor only wanted $25 for it, but he accepted the $20 I offered him
It's leather lanyard/strap was very dry and stiff from being so old. I carefully worked it a bit with a leather conditioner and it gave it back some decent flexibility. This truncheon has that look like the ones seen in old cartoons... It's short and fattens up towards the business end. My guess is that this truncheon is actually quite old.
As can be seen above by what prices I paid for these items, I got them truly on the cheap.
The local flea market in my area is held on Sunday mornings, and I usually attend it.
I don't score every time I go, but it matters not, since I find the search for little treasures to be a lot of fun.
I can't say that I've scored on any Picasso or Van Gogh, (yet), but have landed a bunch of great deals there.
For example, at the same flea market, I picked up this nice condition Antique Joseph Rodgers hunting Bowie knife for only $50.
And here's another "nightstick", (likely antique), that I only paid $15 for at the flea market
And these other four that I also picked up at that same flea market. The darker one of these first two shown below cost me $10, and the lighter colored one cost me $15.
The walnut finished one in the following photo cost me $15, while the black one cost me $7.
I did repaint the black one. It was already originally black, but quite a bit of it was worn and scratched up. So, I simply went over the whole thing with a piece of 0000 steel wool saturated in denatured alcohol, and then I sprayed it with a new coat of black paint. I don't usually alter any of my collection's items, but there are a very few I have chosen to make into little projects, (as I did with this nightstick).
So, yeah, I definitely hunt the local flea market scene and do occasionally find items to add into my "Interesting Objects Collection"
Oh, by the way, the Joseph Rodgers Bowie and nightsticks shown above have all recently been Ren Waxed. This stuff continues to prove itself quite good on metal, leather, and wood... And, now it seems I can add painted surfaces to that list
