The News from ElephantToenails.com

Identifying a fake toenail- Seeking an expert’s opinion

Fellow ETCC members let’s face it- there are knives out there made to trick us into spending our hard earned money on them under the pretense that they are authentic. While we don’t want to go around paranoid thinking everyone is a crook, we do have to be prudent in our pursuit to find toenails to add to our collection.

I admit I have bought fake toenails thinking they were the real deal. Most of the time I sought counsel and then returned the knife. One such individual’s opinion I value is Bernard Levine. As you may know, Mr. Levine has written several books (10) and over 500 articles related to knives. My all time favorite is no longer published, yet can be purchased from his site- Levine’s Guide to Knives and Their Values, 4th Edition. I had the fortunate opportunity to meet him at the Oregon Knife Collectors Show in Eugene, Oregon a few years ago.  Mr. Levine is pictured below at the show.

While he can be very harsh (by choice I am sure) in telling me I should have been able to make the determination on my own, rarely do I disagree with his conclusions.

Recently, I posted about the 7250 Tortoise Shell Case Brothers I had purchased. When it came in I immediately contacted Mr. Levine pertaining to the identifying tortoise shell handles vs celluloid. Here’s what he had to say to me after I spelled out what I saw (he had seen pictures at this point too).

Let’s all learn from his wisdom here-

1. First look at the knife. You did that, and found a list of problems, mainly size and shape, but also the bad fit of the handle material (regardless of what it is or isn’t). This should put you on your guard.

2. Second look at the WAY it is marked. This marking is obviously fake. This fakery kills the deal (regardless of what the marking says).

3. Only if the knife passes muster on #1 and #2 should you consider what the mark says. You made the mistake of doing #3 first, and wasted both our time.

Granted his jab at the end stung, but his points are the important thing (I told you he was harsh, didn’t I?).

Should you ever wish to seek his opinion know this: He won’t speculate. He will tell you if he knows or he doesn’t. Note too, he has a strict criteria for photos, if you are going to send any. He won’t look at any pictures that don’t meet his specs. Contact him before sending him any photos. He charges for his time (paypal).

He is an expert and is very interesting to talk to. You’d love to read some of the emails I have received from him- my suggestion is the less you say the better. Just get to your point and let him answer.

As a wrap up- I approach him as if he was my grandfather. Gruff, harsh and will put me in my place- but is fair and is really trying to teach me to think.

My intent with this post was not to “push you to contact Mr. Levine,” but I like the guy and truly value his insights. So, let’s take his guidance to heart here and be thankful we still have these old timers still with us to whip us into ‘right learning.’

Recently one of our active ETCC members got a lead on a CB 7250 Tortoise Shell handled toenail and did the right thing of running it down. Do you know how rare an authentic 7250 Case Brothers tortoise shell is?

Interestingly, however, it turned out to be the same fake Case Brothers (and same seller, Jay Nelson of Huntington, WV), I purchased a few years ago. The good news is we KNOW about this knife and who has it. The main purpose of this article is to put our other fellow members on notice before Toenail Blindness* clouds someone’s  judgment and it is added to their collection.

Here is it- at first glance it almost looks good but if you look further it is a fake.

I’ll cover what I didn’t like about it, but first take a look at the stamps- Look at how jumbled up the letters are.

Here is the pen blade stamp- check out the remains of the ‘C’ from what I believe to be Camillus. It is right above the C on Case. Also, see how close the letters are- too close among other things.

Now compare the length against authentic Case Brothers. The top one is the ‘51 pattern (4 1/2 inches) and the bottom one is the ‘50 pattern (right at 4 inches) Case Brothers. The fake is in the middle at 4 1/4 inches.

 I”ll post an article illustrating the various Case Brothers stamps (I know of three variations right off) soon.

The knife and backspring are ‘thinner’ than any Case Brothers (or WRC, for that matter), but are an exact match to Camillus in length, width and style. Also this knife lacks the TESTED XX stamp on the rear of the master blade. There were several other issues (real tortoise does not shrink, I am told but celluloid does, etc.), but you get the point. Therefore, I had concluded it is a Camillus frame (the blades were poorly stamped Case Brothers).

Our fellow ETCC member reached his own conclusion on this knife totally independent of me and arrived at the same conclusion- it was a fake and it was really a Camillus.

*Toenail Blindness is an delusionary illness where the collector wants to see a fake knife as the real thing.

ITS BACK>>>>

Back in Nov. this Camillus was on the block, well its back.

My guess is it has been rehandled. Older toenails don’t have super thick stag and this appears to be newer stag.

It is the same seller too.

We started the discussion of collectible condition with previous post on “What is the basis of value for an old knife?” While the overall theme was how Brand should have a greater weight than condition when determining the value of an antique knife, we saw one of the byproducts of an overemphasis on condition is knives being “made” to resemble original condition knives.

Today I’d like to discuss what I am going to call “What about knives with the three R’s (Reconditioned, Restored & Reworked) do they qualify as Collectible Condition?”

For us here at ET.com, we have voted on our definition of Collectible Condition and the results may surprise some of you. (more…)

At the Dalton show I found would have been a first for me but after I scoped it out, determined it was a fake.

It was reported to be called a Case Brothers “swayback” toenail. As I walked up on it, it immediately caught my eye (sorry for the blurry photo…I got this one shot and then my battery died).

It was greenbone Case Brothers that appeared a bit thinner than usual. It was a really cool knife and there for a minute I thought it might be a new toenail “style.” In case you are curious he was asking $2200 for it.

I couldn’t help but get my glass out to look closer and upon a more thorough inspection found the bolster pins had been dug out. No longer where the pins nice and round and there was an unusual “rust” on top of each one- both sides and both ends. Really, that was about all I found that I didn’t like, but put it back fairly quickly after discovering the pin problem and therefore didn’t continue to inspect it. The handles followed the contour of the liners nicely. I did notice there were some “bumps” where the bolsters came to meet the handles in a couple of areas, but probably wouldn’t have been too bothered by that had the pin problems not jumped out at me. The blades and stamping were original…..just don’t know where the counterfeiter came up with the handles and frame.

I walked away from the table disappointed. I thought I had found a real jewel because not all “one of a kind” knives/toenails are fake.

In light of the two recent eBay sales of Case XX USA Dotted Series rehandled toenails (a red bone & a pearl handled), I have taken it upon myself to prepare a “reference list” of toenails produced by WR Case after its Bradford Era. I have attempted to compile a complete list using my collection, information from Case and various resource books.  (more…)

Have you seen the “rare” Case XX USA 6250 Pearl going off on eBay?

Let’s chat here about this….first off from a collector’s perspective can a “rehandled knife” still be NM? I plan on posting about reworked and repaired knives very soon here in The News, but for now, let’s set that aside…..

If you are new to toenails or Case dotted series toenails, I need to point a few things out- (more…)

Here is a doozie..Reported to be a Case Bros imitation tortoise shell. Here’s the seller’s description: (more…)

Did you notice the eBay auction about a week ago that was a 10 dot Case XX USA? The seller reported it to have red bone handles. I questioned it immediately.  (more…)

Reported to be a stag handled Camillus Cutlery Co. New York (both blades stamped).  (more…)