Garage sale find: EGW Knife

[Dr.Rob]

I found that a few of you have these commercial blades made during WW2.

This one has seen some serious use and abuse looks to be ground down to 5 inches and the blade nearest the bottle opener is thin and bowed in. The replacement wooden grip is made of pine shimmed with nails and wood with period leather end-caps. The hilt guard and tang end look original the only thing holding it together is the split ring at the end.

I took it apart and the full tang is rust free. There is a slight and gradual flex in the blade.

I spent a whole dollar on this bottle-opener shaped like a knife thinking it sort of looked like a cork handled dive knife from the 40's. The blade seems very light and has a textured finish. Is it even steel?

I don't really need another knife I just thought it looked neat in an ugly duckling way.

Any ideas on how to make it a knife again? Or what it would cost to do so? Is it worth it?

I think I can handle making a stacked leather grip, but I have never recontoured a knife blade.

 

[rcmodel]

Congratulations!

(I guess?)

Here is everything I know about them!!

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=682064&highlight=Egw+knife

IMO: it's not worth putting a lot of effort in restoring it.

It is what it is, is what it is !

rc

 

[Smokey Joe]

Old, cheapo, kinfe...

Dr. Rob--Here's the thing: If you try to "restore" this old thing, even a little, you will have a restored, not-very-good-in-the-first-place, knife, with zero antique value. If you clean it up a little (w/o removing any patina there is!) what you have is a collectible.

If you don't want to use the darn thing my advice would be to not restore it. Heck, if you DO want to use it, still don't restore--there are better, modern, units to be had for cheap.

So, having--gently--cleaned it up, unless you want to add it to your own collection, start taking it to gun shows and carrying it around, wearing a sign describing what you have for sale. Sooner or later, you'll find someone who will willingly pay you a collector's price for the thing.

And what a dandy excuse to go to several gun shows, in the meanwhile! You'll get to hobnob with knife enthusiasts, and someone may well be able to tell you more about the origins of your knife.

 

[rondog]

So, having--gently--cleaned it up, unless you want to add it to your own collection, start taking it to gun shows and carrying it around, wearing a sign describing what you have for sale. Sooner or later, you'll find someone who will willingly pay you a collector's price for the thing.

Probably spend a LOT more on the gunshow costs than you'd ever get for that knife.....

 

[rcmodel]

and someone may well be able to tell you more about the origins of your knife.

Emmmmm?
I already did.

See the link in post #2, again.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=682064&highlight=Egw+knife

That's about all there is to know about them, that I know off.

rc

 

[Smokey Joe]

Expenses...

Rondog--You said

Probably spend a LOT more on the gunshow costs than you'd ever get for that knife.....

I regard gun show admissions, and related costs, as entertainment expenses, just like the admission to a fair, or a movie theater, and a darn sight more fun usually.

If there is money to be made @ a gun show, that's just a bonus--the dickering with potential buyers is part of the fun. I try always to be carrying around something for sale, at a show. Amazing how many different people you get to talk to, that way. The more homework you've done on your item, the more interesting the discussion.

Dr. Rob here has a $1 knife. If he sells it to a collector for $5, he just made $4. Which will defray part of his gun show admission. That's all.

If he can take something more valuable to the show, and sell it, sometime, he might actually come out ahead--Then he can afford to buy a bouquet for his SO on the way home.

Let's face it--this guns-and-knives-and-hunting-and-shooting business is never going to make any of us rich. We might as well enjoy it as much as possible.

 

[ApacheCoTodd]

I'll dissent regarding the above comments.

Waterman knives are fun little projects with little downside to "restoring".

Firstly, they were not "issue" knives so there was a lot of variation as to the composition and "look" of the handles.

Often times they were quite pretty in their use of colored fiber washers, contours and sometimes "trench art" style of interspersed aluminum washers and clear ones with the leather and fiber ones.

I say: Tear it apart, polish that blade and set to finding the washer combos you want and have some fun - financial returns be damned.

These were found in standard right hand stitched and riveted sheaths and in the bi-directional "dagger" shaped sheaths so just get the next one at a gun show that stirs you and is cheap - or - make one from one of the kits.

Being a Waterman - few aficionados are gonna give you grief and pooh on them if they do!

Have fun with it - it's the "dress-up-doll" of GI knives and they were so molested "in theater" that standard is a thing of the past for them.

Leather, colored fiber, aluminum, exotic wood and "lexan" discs are very common on them.

Todd.

 

[rcmodel]

+1

But it wasn't Lexan.
It hadn't been invented yet in WWII.

More common was Plexiglas and aluminum out of shot-up aircraft.

rc

 

[kBob]

My Grandfather was a civilian avionics repair guy in WWII. He got sent off to school in Tennessee I believe he said just to have classes on repair of Plexiglas and polishing it to clarity. He did skin work as well and hated P51 pilots that would test his repair of wing damage from a duck collision by tossing a silk scarf over the repaired area to look for snags. As a kid I found a couple of Plexiglas disc of exactly the same size in one of his shop drawers and he said they fit the hole made by a special cut out saw, like for making door knob holes with. Appearently not many aircraft in Tallahassee FL during the war had bullet holes in canopies that needed repairing though. Ducks though......

-kBob