Rock Island Auction Co.

Ed Fowler

Ed Fowler

Joined
Jul 21, 2001
Messages
2,869
Rock Island Auction Co, Moline Illinois.
They just put out a catalog of custom and antique knives that will be at auction in a few weeks. If you have not seen it, you are missing out at getting to view some fantastic knives from a collection of a man who had a true appreciation of the classic custom knives.

I have no financial interest in the outfit, just received the catalog and learned a lot about the custom knife market and got to see many great custom knives I would not have been able to without the catalog.

A friend took the email and website information as well as the catalog so you will have to look it up on line.
 
I agree Ed, they have put together a very nice catalog with some beautiful antique and custom knives.
I understand the deceased gentleman also had a heck of a firearms collection as well, which will also be auctioned off.

Rock Island is actually a huge firearms auctioneer, so it's even more impressive that they were able to put such a nice knife catalog together fairly quickly.

Two brothers operate Rock Island, I spoke with one at length at Blade Show and they seem to be good people who know what they are doing. They are CKCA members as well.
 
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You're right Mr Fowler, I looked at my catalog today and there are some big names in there and some gorgeous knives. The photography is quite good as well. Lin
 
Very nice catalog, absolutely. It will be of great interest to see how some of those classic daggers fair at auction. Some interesting stuff there.

Bob
 
Down through the years I have accumulated a large number of what I considered odd ball Asian knives, many for very little cost as no one was interested in them. I did not figure they were worth much, looking at the catalog I see I may have invested much more wisely than I thought!

I do not have my catalog with me so cannot name them but will post some photos when I can.

Thank You Less George for providing the website! And to the rest, thanks for the support, I posted this thread with trepidation.
 
Lorien said:
There are some incredible Goos in there, which I would love to own. Other ones too, but those are my favourites
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You noticed those too, eh? ;)

Thanks for posting this Mr. Fowler. On top of all of the great knives on display, I've finally found some decent photographs of the venerable Colt 1902. :thumbup:
 
Double wow!!!! A plethora of Warenski's!!! I also noticed that there is a brother to my little Moran pilots knife type fighter, albeit in much better shape and with the original sheath that has an estimate of $4000-6000!!!!!:eek:
 
Nice collection but someone didn't take care of it. Almost every knife has scratches and/or dings. The rust on the bluing all but keeps the knife from selling for any real money.

A couple of these knives are "estimated" at more than the maker currently gets for the knife...and they have scratches.

Lots of knives from the power makers of the mid-late 80's.

If you know the maker, you can probably get some good deals as the maker can clean the knife up for you.

To their credit, they point out every mistake on the knife. And allow you to focus in on the scratches, rust, shrinkage, cracks, chips, etc.

Isn't this auction a week before the auction in Chicago? Could have an effect on this auction.
 
One thing I've noticed about alot of the daggers - the estimates are all over the place. I think many who have some knowledge of pricing might feel that the auction estimates, in most cases, are overly optimistic.

Bob

ps: as to condition, I think the auction house is probably trying to cover itself and reveal every single tiny issue, something that other knife auctioneers don't do.
 
Les Robertson said:
To their credit, they point out every mistake on the knife. And allow you to focus in on the scratches, rust, shrinkage, cracks, chips, etc.

Isn't this auction a week before the auction in Chicago? Could have an effect on this auction.
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I felt at the time we were previewing the catalog that it would have made MUCH more sense to break the auction up into three parts about 3 months apart....daggers being one part, maybe forged stuff another part, and an oddball mix in the third part....obviously, they can do what they want. It's too much at the same time, imo.

There was some real nice stuff there, and I think that many of the flaws are quite fixable, and therefore negligible if the price is right, Les.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
Kohai999 said:
I felt at the time we were previewing the catalog that it would have made MUCH more sense to break the auction up into three parts about 3 months apart....daggers being one part, maybe forged stuff another part, and an oddball mix in the third part....obviously, they can do what they want. It's too much at the same time, imo.

There was some real nice stuff there, and I think that many of the flaws are quite fixable, and therefore negligible if the price is right, Les.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
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Yeah, I agree with the above STeven, especially about breaking the auction up into three natural parts. And timing, what is it, a couple days after the "other" Premier auction.

Bob
 
jdm61 said:
Double wow!!!! A plethora of Warenski's!!! I also noticed that there is a brother to my little Moran pilots knife type fighter, albeit in much better shape and with the original sheath that has an estimate of $4000-6000!!!!!:eek:
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Actually, looking at the Rock Island lots and the Chicago Premier Knife Auction lots - the higher quality Warenskis are all in the Premier Knife Auction.

Best,

Bob
 
Les Robertson said:
Nice collection but someone didn't take care of it. Almost every knife has scratches and/or dings. The rust on the bluing all but keeps the knife from selling for any real money.

Yes, I noticed that too. Large collections can be difficult and/or expensive to maintain. I'm always a little leery of bidding on or buying from large collections whether it be knives, cars or whatever.

A couple of these knives are "estimated" at more than the maker currently gets for the knife...and they have scratches.

They should get closer on their estimates as or if they continue to auction knives. They show more experience in their firearm estimates.

Isn't this auction a week before the auction in Chicago? Could have an effect on this auction.

Actually the same weekend as the Chicago Show/Auction. You would think they know that, perhaps they're up against a deadline. The firearms may be their primary concern considering dollars involved. Or perhaps they feel the Chicago event may act as a draw. Similar to competing retailers opening up shop in close proximity to one another.
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It should be interesting as it would be to get Bruce's thoughts.
 
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Kevin Jones said:
It should be interesting as it would be to get Bruce's thoughts.
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I just looked at the first page of the firearms that they had listed and there are a TON of rather desirable old Colt automatics.:eek:
 
Kohai999 said:
I felt at the time we were previewing the catalog that it would have made MUCH more sense to break the auction up into three parts about 3 months apart....daggers being one part, maybe forged stuff another part, and an oddball mix in the third part....obviously, they can do what they want. It's too much at the same time, imo.

There was some real nice stuff there, and I think that many of the flaws are quite fixable, and therefore negligible if the price is right, Les.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
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In having been an executor of one estate and assisting on another, usually as far as the heirs are concerned, getting the estate settled in the least amount of time trumps drawing it out for a little more gain. In addition, time equals expense that a potential gain has to cover.

Rock Island gave me the impression they were on an aggressive time schedule.
 
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Kevin Jones said:
Rock Island gave me the impression they were on an aggressive time schedule.
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Rock Island has almost no experience with custom knives....aggressive or not, a stretched out time period would have yielded a much higher sales rate, with higher prices realized, and you can take that to the bank.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
Kohai999 said:
Rock Island has almost no experience with custom knives....aggressive or not, a stretched out time period would have yielded a much higher sales rate, with higher prices realized, and you can take that to the bank.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
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I know Steven, they have very little experience with knives. So little experience they asked me for help with descriptions and pricing estimates for their catalog. Image that :confused: ;) :D I couldn't help them for 3 weeks and that was a deal breaker, thus my reason to believe they were on an aggressive time schedule.

I also got the impression that the knives were peanuts compaired to the rest of the estate. So one wouldn't hold up an entire huge estate from settling to pick up a few points on a small sector of it.

As I said earlier, the fact that they were able to put such a good knife catalog together with limited knowledge of knives in a small amount of time speaks to the high quality of their organization.
 
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