Where do you find your knives?

textoothpk

textoothpk

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I don't think this is too off-topic for this group, as I can also ask it as "Where do you find your Schrades?"

Where do you other guys find your old (or semi-old) treasures?

I have a little route through town that takes me to my favorites. There are two pawnshops on it, and those have paid off nicely. mostly for somewhat newer knives. Only three antique shops, and those are all the 'mall' variety, where a bunch of different sellers rent spaces. I've done better in those places than stand-alone, single owner/operator antique shops. All of the owners of those places seem to think any old knife is a valuable knife. I try and take my little excursion the same day the knife and gun show takes place... About once every two months, or month and a half.

Any other places, guys?

Phil
 
textoothpk.......
Some nerve you have trying to get something going in this sleepy little forum......yawn.

Oh, back to your question:D .....

I have not found any pawnshops here that carry more than 1 or 2 OVERPRICED SPECIAL COLLECTERS EDITIONS. Sigh. I have to frequent the gun shows, but they are surprisingly loaded with knives as well. Some old fashioned hagglin' is needed to get a reasonable deal....no real bargins as of yet.

Still on the chase,

Bill
 
Well, I find them at local antique stores, Wal-Mart, Lowes, gun and knife shows, E-bay, or at Ace Hardware stores. I hate Wal-Mart, but when they have their clearance sales, I've got 8-OTs for as little as $8! Can't pass that up!

I recently bought some on-line for the first time, transaction went well.
 
Almost all of my schrade purchases are bought on ebay. There aren't alot of good pawn shops in my immediate area, and those that are there think every knife they have is the Alamo Bowie. :rolleyes:

The thing about ebay that I like, is that you can find so much more variety and supply of your favorite knives, that may have been cleaned out locally.

Occasionally, I get lucky at a yard sale...
 
I use E-bay, blaudeauction and a huge list of on-line dealers of antique and new knives.
Its to damn cold in NH for yard sales and pawn shops dont like to carry knives that are not "collectable" (junk)
Besides acquiring from friends, here is few of the places I go to drool.
http://www.knifeseek.com/
http://www.vintageknives.com/
http://www.classicgunsandknives.com/knives2.asp
http://www.tizzys.com/
http://www.bobticeknives.com/knives.html

For new production stuff
http://www.eknifeworks.com/
http://www.sports-nuts.com/site/index.pl?choice=search&search_for=category1&search_id=Knives
http://www.888knivesrus.com/
and dont forget
http://www.schradeknives.com/index.htm
 
About 40 years ago I started hunting in this area many of the men I hunted with had a lot of kids and they like myself were meat hunters with five kids at the age of 23, venison was a winter staple. I never really liked freezing in the woods or killing ( animals) I do enjoy venison and I like playing cards and I really liked drinking so I became the butcher and cook at our camp. Many of the people I knew and associated with were one way or the other involved with Schrade. My butchering and helping out soon branched out to others. Pretty soon I was doing a lot of animals. I never took a dime although I never turned down a hind quarter ( some fire wood) or a similar donation. I always had a cold one waiting for anyone who came over. Quite often when I would not accept payment they would pull out a Schrade or two and say "here I know you collect these". It was also pretty well known that I was always looking for these and would pay a fair price. As the years went by I eventually was doing deer for some of the Grandsons of the original guys I hunted with. I also became the watch commander at the local State correctional facility and a lot of the officers were related to these same people they also knew that the old LT would always come up with some money for a knife if a young officer was short a couple of days before payday. They also knew that I would come up with a couple of bucks even without a knife. So as it worked out I sure have got a lot of nice knives. In fact I still get a lot of nice knives. Until this year it was not unusual for someone to drop over for a beer or to do an animal or both and leave a knife or two. I always get a kick out of some of the younger fellows when after we get done they reach into there pocket and say here Mr Langston "Grandpa told me not to forget to pay you". I remarked a couple of days ago in another posting that I went to get a question answered by an old friend of mine ( who I called the Guru ) since he worked for Schrade both in Walden and Ellenville since the 50tys. While I was there I bought around 3 dozen pristene Schrade cuts, Schrade Waldens and frontiers. I brought him some venison sausage ( since he does not hunt anymore). Also at this point the money helped him a lot more than having the knives. At least that is what he told me when he asked if I wanted to buy them. If you add to this that I lived in Walden and Ellenville as a kid and have been intrigued by these items since I was 7 ( when I got my first one ) it adds up to a lot of nice knives. Ebay also has opened up new vistas regarding these artifacts. I also try to avail myself of flea markets, pawn shops when in an area where they have them. I live in a hamlet ( it is to small to even be called a village ) so there are no pawnshops. Truthfully I also fine that usually the pawn shops are overpriced and don't have much. Still they are fun and you never know. There I go gabbing again it passes the time and I appreciate how nice you all have been to my rantings. LT PS thankyou for the websites to check that is my 3 AM project when I cannot sleep.
 
Interesting, guys, thanks for some more tips, escpecially you, Larry. I didn't know of a couple of those knife sites.

LT, you ALWAYS come up with not just an answer, but an interesting antecedent/tale as well. You can call them ramblings, but we all enjoy anything you post. Regardless of of whether Tim Faust ever shows back up or not, we consider you our moderator and Schrade guru.
By the way, you must be really good at deer butchering by now! I do my own, always, finding that really completes the hunting experience for me, and I do a better job than any of the places that spring up around hunting season.

Yard/garage sales have paid off for me in the past. The springtime is best, here in Michigan. Like a saturday, and even better when there are a lot of them in one area, like a neighborhood sale. I can't hit every one of them, so I look for one thing as I cruise by... Fishing rods sticking up. That's the signal that flags me down and lets me know a sportsman's stuff may be selling there. A knife or a good old .22 rifle (I collect those as well) may very well be waiting for me. I do 'deal' in some outdoor collectibles as well as knives. Best find so far? A Marbles Woodcraft- near mint- Stag on stag, that I bought for $10.

I mentioned in my first post that antique shops seem to overprice their knives, the owners under the impression that any old knife is worth big bucks. Well, my best purchase at such a place was also a Marbles, a safety folder, for $90. But all the knives she had, even the beat up Imperial tin-shells were going for around that much. Again, the seller thought all knives are worth lots of money...and some of them are! She just didn't know how much.

I'm rambling here myself... But Glenbad mentioned the Alamo Bowie. A friend asked me what the holy grail of knife collecting was. I thought about it for a day, and told him the fixed blade would be that, the knife Jim Bowie carried to Texas with him. If, in fact, he did take such a knife with him. We don't know, do we? The knife, if it existed, probably ended up in a Mexican adobe hut, used to cut, the hilt to pound tortillas, until it was used up and thown away.

The holy grail of folders? A real, imported to the original 13 colonies, Barlow. Impossible to authenticate, as no one has ever seen one.

Excuse the ramblings...

Phil
 
Nice post, LT! I like your old stories, too. :)

Phil, I have had pretty good luck at antique stores, but mostly with old Camillus knives. I've never paid more than $22.00 (for a carbon-bladed Camillus whittlerin great shape), and mostly pay around $15 or so. I like them better than E-Bay because you can inspect them first.
But, you're right, they can get silly on their prices sometimes. At a local store last year, I saw an old Remington, not sure the style, as only one blade, an abused small pen-blade, was left. In very poor condition, they had $100 on it, just nuts.
That Marbles was a great catch, I've never been that lucky! :eek:
 
The alamo bowie has been a topic which often comes up and it is a complicated confusing one. In 1983. The national knife magazine. Did an article on a knife which to a large part has been accepted as the Alamo bowie. Before beginning please remember that Jim Bowie owned and used several bowie knives and the style of these knifes differed the Rezin ( bowies brother ) bowie which was given to Jim by his brother looked more like a butcher knife and that was the famous knife and style used in the Sandbar river fight in which Bowie gained much of his acclaim as a knife fighter. In fact he surprised himself by living through his wounds. But such is the stuff of legends. In any event volumes have been written on Jim and to make this a reasonable length. I want to concentrate on the Alamo Bowie.

The Alamo Bowie was to most accounts more like the Iron mistress ( the Alan Ladd movie of the fiftys)knife or standard bowie style. This article written in 1984 gives this account of a knife thought by many to be the actual bowie used by Jim at the Alamo. A man named Bart Moore from Ranch Cucamonga who was 25 in 84. Owned a knife passed down for 4 generations. To begin with the knife is made of damacus steel known to be made by only two knifemakers then and bears the initials of James Black (and his mark) of Arkansas and the name J Bowie ( on the other side. Moores Grandfather acquired the knife from a former mexican soldier ( who had been one of Santa Ana's 5000 man army ) 50 years after the battle as repayment of a 5 dollar loan. According to him all of the Alamo defenders, bodies were burned. Bowies body was spared (at first) because he was married to the vice governors daughter who was in fact Santa Ana's God child. This article appeared in June of 83 in August there was a follow up article. This one was much longer and is more inclusive however time and space allows only that I try to just bring out a few new facts further inspection for various technical aspects seem to confirm that the knife was made by black.( Bowie according to legend had the knife made in 1833 or 1834 when while visiting Washington he had Black make it for him.) The original story is elaborated on by the original owner( and first relative in the line of related owners) being James Moore, Sheriff of Burke-Burnett Texas in 1890. The mexican had fought at the Alamo ( after being conscripted into the mexican army) after the battle the bodies were stacked in three piles one body was not immediately burned ( it was said he was of the Santa Ana family ( Jim Bowie), the body was thrown on to the fire it was then the mexican saw the knife fall from its sheath after the burning the soldiers would not go near the spot gathering his courage the old mexican soldier conquered his fears long enough to recover it. The knife although singed was still OK. Other articles were written on this knife in 74 and 75 ( in muzzleloader magazine). Again there are other bona fide bowies however this pertains to the Alamo, Knife Bowie, which may have only been made and owned by Bowie for the last few years of his life. This knife was on display from May 84 through Oct 84 at the National Knife Museum. The FBI once tried to acquire this knife as a national treasure. Is it real? Who knows it sure has some great bona fides. The offers made to buy the knife even then were enormous. I do not know what has happened to the knife in the interim. Remember the John Wayne movie The man who shot liberty Valance ( Lee Marvin) what a great movie, anyway the line in the movie is (something like) when the legend becomes the truth print the legend, so who knows?? LT.
 
Interesting story on the Alamo Bowie LT, funny how in Mexico we don´t hear that much about the Alamo, probably the most mentioned moment about the Mexican-American war in Mexican schools and texts is the taking of Chapultepec castle by the American army, and we have our own heroes who died there. Could be because Santa Ana isn´t that popular in Mexico, considered by many to have been a mean (and mad) dictator, I believe he ended up living in New York, I´ve heard that over there he met a man named Adams and introduced him to the chicle paste which was later used for chewing gum.

As to where do I get knives, In Mexico you have to know the right places and hunt around to get good or even just decent stuff. Fortunatley I know people who sometimes go to the U.S. and Canada and sometimes get things for me, for Christmass I got a 34OT Middleman as a present from a relative who visited San Antonio, Texas.

I rememember once in a hardware store in the city of Queretaro, when I went to the cashier to pay I noticed that there was something like a glass covered drawer under the counter, it was full of old pocket knives, I asked if they were for sale and they said sure!, most of them weren´t that good but I did get a nice German folder, and they had a nice fixed blade somewhere else which I ended up getting too.

Went over there some time later and all the knives were gone.

I once found some Schrades for sale at a local Sears and ended up getting a bunch of Uncle Henry stockmans, I´ve checked many times again and they don´t carry Schrades any more.

Edited to add:

I thought maybe I could mention that I got my Schrade LB7 in New Orleans in 1978 during my honeymoon, my wife wasn´t too thrilled by all the knives in the shop but at least she was understanding, I originally got the LB7 as a present for my father in law. Many years later he gave it back to me and said something like "you know, I´m never really going to use this, it´s too large for me and I don´t think it should spend its time in a drawer, take it and use it", he likes electrician knives, I have given him several over the years and he has always wore them down, but the LB7 was mint, so I took it back and it has been a fine user for me.

Edited also for spelling.
 
Nice thread. :D

Edit: Oops, forgot the reason for my post.

I used to visit the OMGKnives website quite often to educate myself on classic slipjoints, to admire the pictures and to make occasional purchases. Too bad that site was discontinued. Nowadays, I visit vintageknives.
 
A large part of what I enjoy about this particular forum is the rambling, Phil, Lt, and all. How about we quit apologizing for the 'ramblings' and just let them be accepted for what they are, which is fascinating. Don Luis, it's great to read a perspective on the alamo from a Mexican citizen. And Lt, I found your info very interesting.

Most of my knives I collected while stationed damn near everywhere during my active duty days.
Karl
 
Hi Guys,
I am a relativly new member and truly enjoy reading all of your "Ramblings".
In response Phil's question about "How we find our knives" I would like to pass on something that has worked well for me. Now I may have a slight advantage over some of you because I live in a larger metropolitan area with more stores available but try it. Since I'm in sales I love to talk to people, so when I go into antique stores I always strike up conversations with the owners so I can develop a rapport with them in case I need to barter with them later. So I go into this well known antique store in San Jose, CA and ask one gentlemen if they had any old pocket knives available. He says they have a few but not many because they don't have alot of room to display them. Then he reluctantly tells me how he has a couple of box of old knives at home that he hasn't touched in the last 20 years! :D
To try to shorten the story I got him to bring them into the store. So I go down to the store and he sets me up at an antique dining table. He brings out this old filthy cardboard box filled to the brim with old knives! :D This box had a Syrian Dagger, military knives, Indian knives (Middle East), pocket knives, etc. This box had definetly not been touched in at least 20 years and I still had no idea if this was going to be a pile of old junk or if it held some hidden treasures. I asked for some butcher paper to spread everything out on because there was so much dirt. It took me two hours to go over every knife with my magnifying glass and 12X loop. After the smoke cleared I had picked out what I thought was the best of the bunch and had the most interest to me, a total of 16 knives. Here's a little sampling of some of the more interesting knives that I got:
1. 1977 Case Folding Hunter 6265SAB (Jigged wood handle) -Very good shape
2. 1940-1964 Case XX Folding Hunter with Stag Handle -Very good Shape
3. 1800's George Wostenholm Sheffield I*XL Pruning Knife - 75% of blade left
(Still trying to narrow down exact period)
3. 1933-1935 Remington 3 bladed Stockman w/SS handle- Etched with the letters "CE" in the middle of the handle- Handles in great shape w/80% of the blades left.
4. 1923-1952 KA-BAR, Union Cutco Co, Olean NY USA-3 Bladed Stockman w/Yellow Pearlized Celluloid handle-Very good shape
5. 1930's?- Hibbard Spencer & Bartlett & Co "Oval Pen" Senator, Beautiful MOP handle with scrolled alumimum bolsters. 90% of blades left, handles in great shape!
6. Stag Ireland- Year?, 3 Bladed with a beautiful unknown yellowish orange type of bone with no texture. Blades have about 80% but handle is beautiful.
7. 1946 Camillus #14 3 Bladed Stockman with Jigged Bone handle. Blades are 100% with some slight rust and handles are in great shape.
8. 1956-1978-Western #652- 2 Bladed Jack with Jigged Bone or Delrin
handle. Blades are about 90% but show some bad sharpning, handles in great shape.
9. Year? Northfield Scolled aluminum handled 2 bladed knife. Handles and blades in excellent condition.
You guys have have been doing this alot longer than I have so tell me what you think? I payed him $500 for the whole "Lot" which I thought was a fair price but tell me what you think?
I also had the same type of thing happen a few weeks ago on one of my weekend hunting trips. I went into the store and starting up a conversation with the lady telling her how my brother-in-law had told me to come over to check out a knife he had seen that I might be interested in. Anyway I took a look at the knife that was in pretty good shape but not what I was looking for. She asked me about what type of knives I was looking for. I told her that I was looking for older knives in good shape and that I was a collector. She said she thought that she had about 10 knives at home that belonged to her dad. Long story short she only had 3 knives not 10. It turned out to be 3 mint condition knives! :D A Scharde Walden, Camillus, and the best one was a 1965-1970 Case model 5232 in mint condition! I couldn't believe it when I saw it, I had never seen an older Case Stag in mint condition before. I only paid $60 for that one. Again I ask the wiser ones, how did I do?
The moral of this rambling story is don't by shy, if you go to an antique or other type of store looking for knives always talk to the people and maybe you can get them to hook you up whereas if you don't ask you'll never know! By the way just as a side note, that first guy thinks he might have another box at home! I just have to wait till I get some money together.
Thank for letting me bend your ears.
Richard
 
Nice to see this thread brought back. We all might get some new hints here. As knife collecting grows in popularity, it gets tougher to make a 'find'. Good advice, Richard: ASK!

What caught my eye was the Northfield circa 1859-1931), a good one, especially with the scrolled aluminum bolsters. Proof that this is a highly collectible brand: Jim Parker (the Carnival Barker) has in the past made use of the BrandName. The name was used also in 1964, but you should be able to tell if it is that new. The 2 Case were great finds, as well as the Western. Good for you!

On the same subject, here is a lesson I learned a couple of years ago... don't come off as an expert! If the seller thinks you are one, and you want his knife, the price goes up. Unless it has a price tag on it, in which case what happened to me a couple of years ago, it can simply be removed from sale. I was at a large outdoor flea market, one of the first people there, and of course there was a cigar box filled with old knives, most with neat little price tags on them. And most were desirable. I picked up a couple of very good ones (very cheap), held onto them, and then a great old Italian shotgun knife. Had no price tag. I asked the seller how much, and he took it away from me, looked at it, dropped it in to the box of knives, and put them all under his table and told me the total for what I had selected (and wisely held onto). That was that. I SHOULD have hemmed and hawed and haggled over every price! Maybe I should have made a negative comment of about each one. Also, I always carry a couple of references with me when I knife shop, but I keep them in a bag, going away from the seller to look something up.

Ebay remains the hugest knife shopping place out there, but nothing beats the pleasure of finding in person, holding, haggling over the price of an old collectible.

Phil
 
As with many things the greatest part of the hunt is the chase. Several years ago I went to a auction in my area. We have several auction houses however they seldom have much in pocket knives. Usually in an ad it will say lot # ( whatever ) group of pocket knives. Then when you go to look at them you find a group of rusted broken junk ( er not junk ) since different things mean different things to different people but, usually stuff you have no interest in. I went in and looked around on the afternoon when I could inspect the group. It consisted of about 17 Schrade smooth wood regular patterns ( the red birch variety that we have spoke of ) . Obviously these had come from the factory one way or the other they were new. Truthfully at an auction and in bulk 10 bucks apiece would seem the max I would pay for them. Then there was a little used older KABAR. A large (wharncliff) Honk falls with a completely broken main blade and a bunch of parts knives and junkers. I forget if there were any other as is users. I was going through the users when something caught my eye . A small gents knife was in the group it was rusted the small pearl handles were broken and the knife had one pin blade which had been wet and not opened in so long that it was black and hard to tell that it was even there. I gave it a quick glance and put all the stuff back and started to leave then halfway out the door my mind flashed ( that happened because at my age that is how thinking occurs in little spurts ) and I said to myself ( THAT WAS A KIPSI KUT ). I suppose that such a revolation is not exactly like Moses returning from the mountain with tablets of stone still to me I stopped in my tracks.

Now to any normal human being this rather inconsequencial happening simply would seem to add further credence to my already questioned mental capabilitys. However one must understand my interest is largely,( among other aspects of the cutlery history ), the history of knives in the Hudson Valley of New York State. This includes Walden, Warwick, Napanoch, Honk fall, Grahamsville ect ( just to name a few ). Newburgh had one knife company in its history the Allen Knife company. Poughkeepsie had 2 knife companies The Nagle Reblade company and the KIPSI-KUT. Over the years the only KIPSI KUT knives I had located were there low end small pen knives with red plastic or cell handles the were the most plentiful since they were a card knife and sold for well under a dollar. Even these are extremely rare. Usually these do not bring a lot of money if you ever find one since no one recognizes the tang. In fact aside from one article which I read years ago and have searched for since I know of no other printed pictures of this marking. Nagles bring huge prices KIPSI KUTS are almost unknown much rarer . Now the point of this is that if you collect something from a specific area you want an example of each of the companies. Some of these lesser known companies were only in business a year or two. I recently spent 300 dollars for a small pen knife of such a local company and was about to spend 500 for another but missed it because I wanted to snipe it and since it went off at 3:10 AM I fell asleep and missed it. This was obviously an instance when old age inflicted sanity upon me in spite of myself.

Anyway back to the story ( is anyone still awake? ). I returned the night of the auction got my bidding number and took a seat. The local buyers immediately smelled something was up when I arrived since I am known as the old (A hole, pardon my french ) who deals in knives and spends like he had money ( but dosen't ). In the mean time I rechecked the group to see if the knife in question was still there. Truthfully it was so inconsequencial that if it had been pocketed or removed I do not believe it would have been noticed missing from the other broken knives in the group.

When it came up the bidding ended I was the proud owner of a handfull of junk which for all intents and purpose was worth around 100 or 150 dollars that I proudly forked over 400 for. When I started bidding everyone figgured there was a treasure in the pile and went nuts in the process I as usual took the beating. Oh well as the old Bobby Bare song used to say ( But I got her boy and thats WHAT MAKES ME THE WINNER???? ). After the auction at least 6 people came up to me and asked if I had finally gone over the edge or just what the hell I had been bidding on. I would proudly hold up my broken rusted pen knife and say it was a Kipsi Kut. They would ask to see, it shake there heads and walk away with the full knowledge that my mind had indeed crossed over.

I took the 17 Schrades and later sold them at 10 or fifteen each dug out another Honk Falls Wharncliff that I had ( believe it or not stashed 20 years ago ) ( This is one of the benefits of being old ). I had them put together into one decent knife. I put the Kabar in my collection of those and put all the junkers in to the same pile the junker Honk Falls had come from. So all that was left was the broken handled Kipsi Kut.

Now pearl is a wonderful material it has a property unique. A jigged bone handle can be replaced but do to the jigging process ( old versus new dies ect it is seldom exact often close but usually unless the repacement is old stock difficult to get perfect), Celluloid is copied but is hard to come by the old patterns will never ( for the most part be duplicated ) so usually you can determine if it has been replaced. Composition forget these, they were between cell and plastic and were made of everything since the sythetics were not perfected. When these go if you replace handles you use something else. (This is an interesting subject by itself and why in the future I feel these handled knives will appreciate faster in some cases. ) . But pearl is pearl it has been the same since nature designed it. Some say you can tell old pearl from new and in some cases, you can, again this is a topic unto itself. However it is one old material to which you can get an exact match.

I took my Kipsi Kut in hand to the old Guru on the mountain who was making knives like this 50 years ago. I brought my usual offering of homemade venison sausage so that he would grant me audience. I then showed him my Kipsi and implored him to make me a new set of handles. He flat out refused he said that he hated doing pearl work. I besieged him he said No matter what I said he would not make me a new set. He said it would be stupid, especially since he had some 75 year old sets for this pattern that he had stashed 50 years ago figuring that some day a whippersnapper like me would come crying to him to fix a knife ( Now that is foresight ).

This is what some people (fanatics) will go through to acquire a knife. Would you like to see a pic of this knife? See attached LT
 
Lt, Phil and Bladeguy,
Great storys. Its also nice to know that I am in the company of people as nuts as myself. I'm sure as time passes I'll think kindly of some of the wild spending I have done in the never ending search for that special hunk of metal. Hopefully by then my better half will see the wisdom of my ways and not simply shake her head and walk into another room muttering unmentionable phrases.
As for striking up conversations with antique dealers and not looking like I know something, thats real easy.
Thanks again for the stories, chuckles and pointers.
Larry
 
Well Schrade lovers watch out if you are from Canada.....it appears the Canadian importer Blunco which brought the knives in Canada has seen the owner retire and close up shop.
This might be a good opportunity for some enterprising Canadian to get the line for Canada.....as for now a few stores have told me that Schrade U.S. isn't even responding to their calls for catalogs!
So of you wantem getem while they are still easily available.

Kap :grumpy:
 
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