The News from ElephantToenails.com

I know many of you watch eBay, but in case you missed this one-

Case Brothers Toenail

Yesterday the auction closed on a nice looking Case Brothers wormgroove bone handled toenail. The bidding was active with 11 bids and the final bid price was $415.

In the end, the seller’s reserve was not met. But for my purpose here, let’s look at a couple things-

From the photos put up the knife looked good and the seller’s description was good.

I always have to look at what the seller didn’t say. In this case, I don’t see anything about the degree of legibility of the stamps. 

Also, the seller says “the snap is good,” but does this mean “acceptable” or did he mean really good? Probably only “good” as in acceptable.

The masterblade was reshaped. Interesting. Makes me wonder if it had broken at some point, or if someone just wanted to make it a clip blade for the heck of it….who knows. Yes, the masterblade is very short too.

The question is did the reshaping and length of the masterblade “set” the price or was it the lack of info on the clarity of the stamps? Or a combo.

We know a Excellent condition or better Case Brothers can command a price above $2000. We saw several sales in 2008/07 to support this fact. So, what “set” the price here at under $500? (I am not grading this particular knife as Excellent. If the stamps were poor and the snap is only acceptable, then considering the length and reshaped masterblade it is probably only Fair.)

Also, a “reserve” auction affects the final price negatively. In our auction business, an unreserved auction brings more money because bidders know it will sale. This could have been a factor.

Or is this price a reflection of the market conditions at this time?? Or did it bring all it was worth?

I’d love to hear comments back from any of you who actually bid on this knife as to why it was judged to have only been worth this price.

Case XX Greenbone

Did you notice the recent eBay auction of the Case XX? One heck of an auction for one jewel of a toenail!

Greenbone Case XX are rare- much more common are the redbones. Greenbones are believed to have been made in the early XX era. This seller reported it to have been made between 1040- 1955. I can go for that.

It had very active bidding with 34 bids. The final sales price was $853.

I posted it in Recent Sales.

With all the goings-on in each of our lives, it is hard to keep up with, well, all the goings-on. So, I wanted to provide you the results of the three toenails sold last week in the J Bruce Voyles Auction.

• Lot 128- Case 7 Dot (”mint, except for a spiderweb or two”): $80
• Lot 249- Case Brothers (”very good, except pen blade repinned”): $232
• Lot 256- Cattaraugus (”excellent,” except for handle chips): $212

Granted, these three toenails may not have been “pristine mint”- but most old knives aren’t anyway; these prices seemed to be good deals.

I know there is a very cautious attitude most collectors of vintage knives take to buying “online,” but even still, I wouldn’t say that in and of itself would cause knives to sell below their true worth. While I didn’t see these knives in person, and do note the “condition description” provided, the Case Bros and Catt seemed to sell for less than they should have.

While probably hundreds of older toenails change hands every month, we do our best to watch for sale prices for us here at ET.com.

We know eBay has them going on weekly, though not all are antique toes, so when we learn of other auctions, we want to know the results. We also do our best to track private sales of toenails as we can learn about them and do promise to keep the seller and buyer’s identities private, if requested.

You may have noticed Bruce Voyles had Auction #39 a little over 30 days ago. A few older toenails were included and I wanted to bring these results to you.

(more…)

Our life is filled with a deluge of thoughts and image impressions. Our memories are, to put it in computer terms, are like a folder on our hard drive. All day, every day, our internal video camera is recording everything our 5 senses are encountering. Think of the shear amount of data our brains filter on a daily basis. Most studies conclude the brain retains this information for your entire lifetime.

Well, while it is interesting to ponder all that I’m just a knife guy who can’t seem to “call up” my kid’s cell phone numbers, so trying to remember what I got for my birthday when I was 10 years old is fruitless.

BUT some things I can remember easily and as if it was just yesterday.

And the day I saw my first toenail is one of those instant recall memories. I’ll never forget it; that knife just jumped out and grabbed me.  It was so different from any of the knives I was familiar. It was so different, unusual, peculiar, and cool, that I knew right then and there I had to find me one!

Long story short- I was “studying” Levine’s Guide to Knives and Their Values 4th edition and when I flipped to the page- those ET’s just reached up and grabbed me ’round my neck.

Here is exactly what I saw

To be honest, it was the C Platts that stood out to me the most.

You gotta love that knife. I mean look at that master blade. It is huge.

I lusted over it for some time (before I turned the page). I was disappointed to see Levine say these knives were popular and expensive. I concluded they were going to be hard to find and really doubted if I would ever actually own one.

So, do you remember your first time?

As an aside, forget the value he had on it at the time (The jumbo had $675 and the pearl MSA at $1200). I’m guessing the book was published close to 25 years ago. That knife today is worth going on… Well that exact knife is owned by the Platts family and is worth probably $10,000 to $15,000! The pedigree of that knife being in the founders family for all these years is what knocks that price out of the park.

I know of two cleaned excellent condition W R Case swellcenters sold a few months ago for $4500 a piece. I know of another one in Near Mint condition offered for a tad under $6000.