WWII or Vietnam War Buck Knife, Bowie style, J.F. Kahle SD

sharp dude said:
ugh ..
so there are no ww2 buck knives ?
only Vietnam ones?
what about Korea ?
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Buck knives have been made for the past 100 years. I'm sure they were carried in WWll, the Korean War, as well as Vietnam. Here's a pic of 1 in my collection from 1954-55, just after the Korean War ended. The sheath is engraved with what I'm guessing is Korean. The only english I make out is "Seoul", "Korea", & "126th Signal"


 
I love the shape of that one Scott. Its so cool to see some of the things written on sheaths to show a footprint of where they have been. Nice knife
 
Scott Hartman said:
Buck knives have been made for the past 100 years. I'm sure they were carried in WWll, the Korean War, as well as Vietnam. Here's a pic of 1 in my collection from 1954-55, just after the Korean War ended. The sheath is engraved with what I'm guessing is Korean. The only english I make out is "Seoul", "Korea", & "126th Signal"


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Scott,
Those may be places or people, I tried to translate the words and there were no translations. Very interesting though... The knife is a bit like a modern day 118 but in a pre factory group 7 knife.
 
Does the OP's knife look like it's been "cleaned up" to you guys? The porous-ness to the blade described by the OP looks like pitting from rust that's been wire-brushed or sanded off, and overall the knife looks pretty shiny for it's age. My first reaction on seeing it was that it was a Pakistan fake due to the wood handles, serrations, and lack of patina, but then I saw the BUCK stamp and remembered hearing about Frank Buck and his big bowies (thanks to this forum : )).
 
Some google searching for those words on that sheath yielded....
Taegu is now spelled Daegu
Chunchon is likely Chuncheon
Hongchon is likely Hongcheon
Pyongteak is likely Pyongtaek

It seems like there are old or alternate spellings of these places...

This thread has me fascinated and entertained :)
 
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riversidedep said:
Does the OP's knife look like it's been "cleaned up" to you guys? The porous-ness to the blade described by the OP looks like pitting from rust that's been wire-brushed or sanded off, and overall the knife looks pretty shiny for it's age. My first reaction on seeing it was that it was a Pakistan fake due to the wood handles, serrations, and lack of patina, but then I saw the BUCK stamp and remembered hearing about Frank Buck and his big bowies (thanks to this forum : )).
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After a few conversations i've had about that knife, I believe that the knife isn't a Pre factory knife and was made in the early to mid 1960s by frank Buck. That being said, the handle can be explained by saying, It appears to be the wood that was being used on the handles of the 110s, the steel in those days was high carbon and prone to pitting so that doesn't look out of place. The finger guard looks to nice to be any older than a factory made piece or something with modern day tools. The only thing that throws me is the sheath, I know that the Buck family did use J F Kahle sheaths from time to time. It may have been cleaned up but I don't think that takes away from the value of the knife in the least.
 
mbjannusch said:
If you didn't care for my comment, your free to answer the question with a better response.
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I do not understand your question. I do not even know to whom it was directed. I was attempting to have you clarify it in the interest of continuing the dialogue. I am quite interested in the topic of these "early" Buck knives and how to spot" them. I didn't buy my first until 1965 and all this earlier history is a revelation.
 
Scott Hartman said:
Buck knives have been made for the past 100 years. I'm sure they were carried in WWll, the Korean War, as well as Vietnam. Here's a pic of 1 in my collection from 1954-55, just after the Korean War ended. The sheath is engraved with what I'm guessing is Korean. The only english I make out is "Seoul", "Korea", & "126th Signal"


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I would guess (this is specualtion) that your knife was carried by a Soldier in Walker's Eight Army at the Pusan Perimeter (1950). The perimeter shrunk in the fall of 1950 as the Communist forces pushed Eight Army to the tip of the pennisula. Taegu was on the leading edge of the fighting around 10 SEP 50 (before the breakout). Seoul was regained after the famous Inchon Landing. Your Soldier probably marked his sheath with battles he was in. OH
 
Yosemite said:
I've got a Buck knife that I'm trying to evaluate for a neighbor of mine. This was amongst a group of WWII and Vietnam naval items, uniforms of one kind or another. This knife is in a leather sheath that is marked J.F. Kahle SD. The blade of the knife is marked only "BUCK". It measures about 14 7/8" long and appears to be in good condition but there are parts of the blade that seem to have some light porosity though I can't tell if that was in the manufacturing of the blade or not, it appears crisp and I guess the reason why I question whether it was in the manufacturing is because some of the porosity is next the stamp "BUCK" and the BUCK stamps seems very crisp, not worn down. Anyway..... I am trying to evaluate this and determine a price range that it would be worth. It is not currently for sale so I don't want to get involved in pricing it as such, I'm just looking for any information I can get about what it is and a value range so I can report back to him and then try to buy it. I sincerely appreciate any opinions on the matter.

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I wish Buck would make a production knife like this one, with 5160 plain edge blade and micarta slabs (a long handle like that on the 124) and a nice leather sheath and they would get alot of business, I know because I buy knives. HINT, HINT BUCK!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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ok I asked as I have a friend that collects bucks
but he did not know so told me to ask here
so I take it that there are ww2 bucks but they were not marked...
mbjannusch what would you look for in a ww2 buck?
so is it the same with Korea era buck knives what of unmarked Vietnam ( cia) buck knives?
 
sharp dude said:
ok I asked as I have a friend that collects bucks
but he did not know so told me to ask here
so I take it that there are ww2 bucks but they were not marked...
mbjannusch what would you look for in a ww2 buck?
so is it the same with Korea era buck knives what of unmarked Vietnam ( cia) buck knives?
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You must have misunderstood, Buck knives dating back to WWII are all marked(BUCK) in some form or another. There has been several blade stamp changes. Buck knives that date back to the late 30s were marked with the BUCK name, and everything from then on till present have been marked in some form.

To answer you question, what would I look for in a WWII Buck, First,(1) would be the Blade & Blade Stamp, That would tell me a large portion of what I need to know, Second(2), handle material, if it has the proper handle material and configuration used during that time, Third(3), Sheath, if it has the proper sheath.

I could explain every detail of a WWII Buck knife but it would take a long time and allot of typing.
 
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