Ward master quality skinning knife

CVamberbonehead

CVamberbonehead

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Hi everyone, I went down to my local antique store because they are having a Labor day sale. I saw a few cool things that caught my eye, but one was a leather handled skinning knife that was pretty unique. It looked like a Marbles Woodcraft with the upswept carbon steel trailing point blade, but it had a leather stacked handle that had metal exposed on the top and bottom (I know Western made some bifurcated tang knives like that) and fiber washers with a birds head pommel and a small guard. It was marked "WARD master quality" on the tang. I searched on here but didnt find any info. It looks like a nice knife, in great shape. It had the owners initials scratched into the leather but I think thats neat. No sheath.

Does anyone know anything about these knives? I am assuming that Western made a Woodcraft knock off and sold them branded as Wards. Am I on the right track?

They also had an Air Force survival knife (Camillus) that I think is pretty old (no metal reinforcement on the sheath). :cool:
 
WARDS marked knives were SFO knives for Montgomery Wards stores. My GUESS is that it was made to sell at Monkey-Wards stores or in their catalog. OH
 
Sorry, no pictures. I didnt really have a ton of time, and the thought never crossed my mind.
 
It looked exactly like this one, even the handle looks the same. It just didnt have a sheath. It looked like it would be a fine skinning knife though (like I need another hunting knife) lolWard.jpg
 
Depends on what you want out of life.

There probably isn't a big collector's market for that knife. The missing sheath drops the value some, and finding the correct sheath would be a near impossibility. Getting your money back out of it probably would be tough. I'm not sure why, but Western doesn't have a big collector following... I'm a Western collector, so good for me. :)

But, on the other hand, a good quality sheath knife for forty bucks isn't to be sneezed at. Buy it, make a sheath, use it. I don't see how you could go wrong.
 
dsutton24 said:
Depends on what you want out of life.

There probably isn't a big collector's market for that knife. The missing sheath drops the value some, and finding the correct sheath would be a near impossibility. Getting your money back out of it probably would be tough. I'm not sure why, but Western doesn't have a big collector following... I'm a Western collector, so good for me. :)

But, on the other hand, a good quality sheath knife for forty bucks isn't to be sneezed at. Buy it, make a sheath, use it. I don't see how you could go wrong.
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Yeah, that would be the plan. I would make a sheath and use the knife. Do you know how those little H shaped leather handle washers hold up in use? I love stacked leather but Ive never seen that type of weird tang before except in a few photos. I have seen many old Westerns with leather handles that are just destroyed... just lack of care in most cases I would imagine but I dont know if those weird thin H shaped washers lead to brittleness of the leather in the middle portions. Sorry if all this is vague.
 
With reasonable care they hold up fine. The area where the H shaped washers meet the tang gives the washers a place to catch on things and tear. But if the handle is still tight I think that's not really very likely. The spine and belly of the handle being steel makes for a really rigid handle.

If you do destroy the handle it'd be an easy thing to make some new scales, and the open center of the steel handle gives you all sorts of options for fasteners.
 
dsutton24 said:
With reasonable care they hold up fine. The area where the H shaped washers meet the tang gives the washers a place to catch on things and tear. But if the handle is still tight I think that's not really very likely. The spine and belly of the handle being steel makes for a really rigid handle.

If you do destroy the handle it'd be an easy thing to make some new scales, and the open center of the steel handle gives you all sorts of options for fasteners.
Click to expand...
Thanks, that was a fast response! Ill go take a second look at it I think and maybe come home with another knife I dont need lol
 
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