The News from ElephantToenails.com

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.

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…)