The News from ElephantToenails.com

Now that I have your attention- here’s the deal. When we lock in on a knife to buy…sometimes our emotions can override our common sense. We are under the influence at that point; we are intoxicated- We are buying under the influence.

Keep your wits

When you finally find one of those toenail brands or styles you seek, don’t get carried away with emotion. Keep your wits about you.

While we all have gotten swept up in the tide of “I got to get this knife,” when in that situation there may be good reasons for not buying it. It could be it is a counterfeit and your gut is telling you to run; it could be the seller is of questionable reputation and the knife is too good to be true; or it could simply be due to the knife’s condition when the seller won’t budge off of a price that is WAY too high.

Word to the wise

My point here is not to be suspicious of every knife or seller you meet, but, on the other hand, I had a wise man once tell me…”we have our gut feeling for a reason….so you had better listen to it.” Most knives and sellers are fine, but if your gut screams at you….LISTEN. If you don’t feel you have enough experience then get a reputable dealer’s opinion.

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As a followup to my editorial- I am Angry a few issues need further addressed and clarified in light of some of the comments I have received. Thanks for taking an interest and sharing your thoughts with me.

1. I am fine with criticism. Moreover, as long as it is rendered in gentlemanly (or womanly, as the case may be) fashion, you are free to express your thoughts.

2. It seems as if my comments were incorrectly construed to have been defending sham artists (crooks, fakers, and folks who intentionally deceive others) as a result of a link posted on BladeForums.com and that topic’s context.

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I've Got a Beef!

I am angry and I don’t get this angry very often. Without getting into many specifics, allow me to share my observations with you.

Knife collecting will only continue to exist as an industry when folks spending their hard-earned money in good faith believe the knives they buy are authentic. At the point these folks’ confidence in the knife they are buying is shattered then the whole knife collecting hobby/ industry will crash.

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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…)

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…)

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

This one took a little time for me to figure out exactly the deal here. To some of you it may have been obvious. (more…)