How do you grade toenails with replaced handles?
You want an interesting conversation- ask collectors of vintage knives about how they feel about rehandled knives. The purists won’t have anything to do with them, while the practicals say if the part is original to the knife then it is a collectible.
Well what about when it comes to pearl handles? Pretty hard to find replacement scales that are original. It is much easier to find bone. So, what do we do when an old pearl handled knife that has had its handles replaced with newer pearl handles?
One question that must be answered is “How do I know the knife originally had pearl handles and it is not a bone handled knife replaced with pearl?” That is difficult to determine in many cases. We have to go back and look at the old catalogs and billheads to determine if the knife was ever produced in pearl.
Then we must look at the pattern numbers on the knife to see if it matches the records, like the 8250 and 8251 Case stamp. Many old knives will not be that easy. Old records can be difficult to get our hands on.
We must also look at the maker of the knife. Were they known to produce toenails in lots of variations? If they did, then it is likely they made pearl toenails too. In the case of contract knives, the same applies. Again, many times we can conclude pearl toenails were likely to have been made.
You can see we can’t simply rush to judge here. We must do some digging. We do know pearl toenails are rare. Recently we looked at a pair of nice old pearl handles. The newer ones are fairly easy to spot. So, for toenail collectors, how do we value pearl handled knives with newer handles?
As far as I’m concerned, I do want original pearl handles, no doubt. These knives are right up there at the top in desirability and value. Toenails known to be authentic pearl toenails but had their scales replaced with newer handles are still desirable. It is going to be up to the collector as to if they see them as collectible and if they do how they value them. What about the toenails that can’t be nailed down to have been produced in pearl? Maybe that maker did or didn’t. We just can’t make a definitive determination. Again, I think it is going to come down to the preferences of each individual collector. Personally, I’m not going to not buy an old toenail with newer pearl solely because I don’t know for a fact that knife wasn’t ever produced in pearl. I’m a potential buyer, but it is going to be a function of the price.
Tomorrow, I’m going to post two pearl toenails that are for sale right now, so be thinking about your personal criteria and preferences- especially if you haven’t ever thought about it before.
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