The News from ElephantToenails.com

One of the charter members of the Elephant Toenail Collectors Club found him a jewel recently on eBay.

Again I’m reminded as I write this that toenails are out there, we just have to look for them. Rarely will a rare toenail land in our lap, but they are out there to be found. Personally, I think there will be some come back into circulation over the next couple of years so be ready.

Anyway, this particular knife was headed ” Old, rare knife Tidioute.” See what I mean about seeking…

No mention of “Toenail,” or “Sunfish,” instead the seller simply referred to it as a “folding knife.”

While the knife did sell for better than $700, my guess is only the Tidioute (Union Cutlery Co brand) buyers were in on this, and not the toenail collectors in general (save one). It probably would have brought even more had it been labeled for what it was- a Toenail.

For an extra bonus- it is one of the rarer of the Union stamps- Union Razor (1902- 1909!

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.

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.

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I admit I pretty much do the lazy man’s mining. Smart folks know sometimes you aren’t going to find jewels on top of the ground, so you must “turn some stones” or move some dirt (in other words, you’ve got to dig).

Here is you a toenail on eBay that requires some digging. It was under the heading: “Antique 2-Blade Folding Pocket Knife.” As you will read below the seller discovered the brand and pattern with the help of ET.com. It is a Union Cut. Co (could be a Union Razor) and doesn’t have a reference to the pattern or brand. If you are interested check it out.

Here is his email:

“Hi Scott;  After looking on your website, www.elephanttoenails.com, I think I have identified an old knife that I am currently selling on Ebay [Item#130245439886] as a “UNION etc—-” Sunfish or Elephant Toenail knife. Other than the ON— on the blades that is legible [which I think is the last 2 letters of UNION], I can’t make out anything else, but the pictures on that website of the UNION 4-1/4″ knives with the light brown handles are almost exactly what this knife looks like. This knife and the others that I’m selling on Ebay have been in a plastic bag in my gun case for probably 15-20 years and I just found them again. Funny. Dave”

The description reads: “Part of my deceased Father’s collection is this vintage folding pocket knife with brown bone handles. The blades have been sharpened numerous times, but the knife is in very good condition and works perfectly. It has some lettering on the base of both blades, but it is so old and used that it is not legible [something like NO_ _ _?]. There may also be some numbers, but I can’t make them out. Thank you for looking and bidding.”

GOOD NEWS FOR COLLECTORS!

This auction just confirms what we here at ET.com talk about all the time- there are tons of toenails out there folks have that aren’t officially in circulation. This is a son’s efforts to sale some of his father’s items. The good news too is the son recognized the father’s knives as a collection and didn’t just toss them out.

Did you see the extremely minty Camillus toenail that went off on eBay the other day? It was one fine sample of a toenail and a treasure.  I’ll be posting the results to Recent Sales here at ET.com soon, but had to say something about this knife. While I confess I am not totally crazy about celluloid handles, I wanted this knife.

It sold for the opening bid of $699. While I thought it was a bit on the high side, it wasn’t far off what I would have paid. Rarely will you find an older toenail with the original finish on the blades. It is one killer toenail.

Congrats at due “one old gray mare” the buyer.

Check out the stamp on this knife 

If you missed it here is the seller’s description- 

Up for auction this vintage, circa 1919-1941, Camillus 4-line sunfish/elephant toenail knife is in near mint condition.  The knife measures a full 4 ¼” long and  1 1/16” wide.  Blade measures 2 7/8” long, blade is full and unsharpened, retains it’s original factory finish.  This knife has not been polished.  Spear tip blade features double pull.  There are a few spots of very light pitting, etching on blade ( LITTLE GIANT ) is clear as could be.  Both blades have a very clear and definite stamping.  The fourth line ( U.S.A. ) is rarely visible on knives such as these.  You can see the top of the “A” in U.S.A. in main blade.  Small blade is in similar condition. Both blades snap well, steel bolsters, brass liners, beautiful brown-green celluloid scale handles.  There is some shrinkage.  Very small scratches on handles, one small nick near back spring on brass liner which is hard to see.  This is the real deal. 

It happened to me a few weeks ago as I was continuing my research and tidbit gathering on Miller Brothers Cutlery Co. While I confess not to be the most qualified researcher out there, I have been able to locate some fairly good bits and pieces on Cutlery Companies including old knife boxes, postcards, letters, canceled checks, photos, etc. These items give us a very brief glimpse of a particular instant in time- Freezing time for us to see it as it was back then.

As you probably know, one of the most interesting aspects of collecting vintage toenails is being able to look through the window provided by such memorabilia to see what it was like then. I call it the “Life and Times” of the Golden Era of American Cutlery history (the late 1800’s to early 1900’s).

Well, the other day, I was doing my research on Miller Brothers. If you read the the Miller Brothers article here in The News you know this is a very interesting firm with a fair amount of info available for us. I have been working on accumulating anything Miller Brothers (except non-toenail knives) and even have an ad running in Knife World looking for MB stuff.

Well, on this day I was searching deep into the bowels of my hard drive when I ran across an eBay sale from Nov. 2004 of a Miller Bros. billhead (letterhead/invoice). The billhead was dated April 30th, 1897. Here is the actual photo the seller used for the auction.

I actually had saved this auction’s page on my computer at the time the auction ended. As I was preparing to open the HTML file I thought to myself- “gosh, I wish I had this billhead. I need to contact the guy who bought it and see if he would be willing to sell it to me, even if I had to offer his a handsome profit to get my grubby lit’le hands on it.”

I scanned down the eBay page to find the buyer’s name and much to my surprise….. it was me.

Sometimes we just have to laugh at ourselves, don’t we?

I happened to be in the middle of an email conversation (that lasted several days) with our honorary member, Mr. Mark Zalesky (editor of Knife World) so I mentioned this funny story to him. Evidently he thought it was funny too. I understand he used it in his editorial for this next edition. (He said the names were changed to protect the innocent, we’ll see.)

In the recent series of What determines Price in Part II we looked at how the price paid for a particular knife doesn’t always reflect the market value of that knife due to either an over-motivated buyer or seller.

Now in this final installment I want to examine these sales approaches (alternatives) from a price perspective. I know there are other factors and we examined those in What is the best approach to sale for you individually based on your personal criteria. Then in Part two- Sales Alternatives we looked at the pros and cons of the different sales approaches.

The question before us now is- “Are there times the method used actually affects the price (the outcome)?” I’m talking something like a glitch or problem with the system itself that would affect the results.

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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.

This is Part II of our topic of “What is the best approach to use to sell your collection?” In Part I we looked at questions to ask yourself. These questions are pointers to help determine which approach best fits your needs, now I want to look at the pros and cons of the different approaches.

In general, a knife is only worth what someone is willing to pay. We must ask ourselves what factors/set of circumstances can I create to create the ultimate buying environment so that when that “offer” comes in it is the maximum offer I could/can expect.

As both an auctioneer and a knife collector, I have been asked on numerous occasions which is more advantageous to sell through, the auction method, or the one-on-one negotiated sales approach. This question typically then leads to online auction, such as eBay compared to the traditional live auction format.

To look into the answers involved here we examine several aspects; first, we must examine each method’s pros and cons. (more…)