buying -and paying the price

My collection is build like a deck of cards with suits in it, each suit/group has its unique characteristics and each group has sub groups within it. My goal is to add more knives to each category or group of knives, the search for new knives never ends .

WHERE TO BUY  your next knife ?
Its imperative that you will thoroughly research the subject before you attempting to purchase your next knife, incomplete research can result with you either being taken advantage of by some bad "dealers" or making a bad deal.
Past history is a good predictor, the first place i will search for a new knife, is the past sellers i dealt with and found them to be fair and honest, preferably private collector that sales pieces from his own collection. this breed of sellers are becoming rare and hard to find, its getting harder to find, it takes years to build a network within the collectors.
If you are new to the field, or with not so much network, you will benefit from researching not only the knife you want to buy but also the person you are buying from. In other words, try to learn who is the seller.  Don't hesitate to ask ask questions, and know that as important as is to ask the questions its important to learn and understand the answers.  For example last month I was in big gun show, I was looking at some of the knives on one of the table and I saw F-S, Beaded & Ribbed, 9 rows, the asking price was around $1000. I asked the seller what led him to ask for such a price, I was thinking maybe the seller researched the knife online and found it to be a rare knife. It's a common knowledge among experienced collectors that the Beaded and Ribbed knife's rarity stems from the number of raw's on it. Beaded and Ribbed knives with 9 rows are common,  one can find such a knife for around $500 online. So...After you heard the seller's answers and compared it to what you know or to other knives from the same group you concluded that this specific seller does not know much about the items on his table. Just for your knowledge, the rare example of the Beaded and Ribbed knife is the 6 or 8 row's not the 9 rows. (bottom photo)
It's also important for the sake of the bottom line to find out if your seller is a dealer or a private collector, due to the addition of commission and such, unavoidably you will pay more when you buy from a dealer. With that being said, I believe I know most of the dealers out-there, some of these dealers  are honest and knowledgeable and they make the buying experience a fun one.

PAYING THE  PRICE .
Your ability to assess how realistic is the asking price for a knife, depends on your knowledge and the research you have done. without knowledge and without research you end up paying the asking price regardless if its justified or not. The sellers goal is to sale the knife for the highest price, he can say many things in order to achieve his goals, such as the knife is very rare and hard to find, is that true? one of the most important questions when it comes to fighting knives that you need to ask, is this knives consistent with the war's time period. In conclusion you need to know your stuff and know your seller enough to feel that you can trust him/her.

LEARN THE MARKET   
Last but not least, learn your market, go over the sold price for the knives online, not the asking price. At the end of the day, the value of the knife is truly the price that someone is willing to pay for it.

The most important is: trust your self, don't let some "expert" decide for you ! continually learn, research  and strive to expend your knowledge. 

              
         

WW2 Floyd Nichols fighting knife

When i started collecting knives, i took every knife i could put my hands on, my collection had no real direction, until i found that for me the the real joy is finding a named knife, a knife that i can attribute to a specific soldier. There is an added dimension when you know who held the knife and you can research the fights they took parts in and the units they were belong to. Its almost as though , a new world that has been closed so far is open up, like the old saying "if only the knife could talk".

since then i added a few named knives in to my collection, some are very rare, and some have history behind them, these knives  are the core of my collection.

Personally I'm not a big fan of knives that are in a mint condition, most likely i will pick a well used knife with name associated with over a mint condition nameless knife, i guess it depends on each collector's preference.

Here is new knife i added a few months ago with the help of a good friend and collector. Not many collectors are aware of this knives, its known mainly in the North America's market. this knives were not mas-produced, it believed that only around 1300 or so where made, hand crafted in David City NE.

This knife for example is one of the early produces knives one , i believe its early production based on the 1937 Indian coin on the pommel,  later on the coin on the pommel was replaced with a stamp that said, "NICHOLS DAVID CITY NEBR".

Part of the reason these knives are unique is the fact that the sheath and the knife are hand made .
each sheath made for a specific knife, and is an integral part of the knife from day one. The sheaths were made by Alfred Cornish from Omaha.
my knife came from LT Col(M,B) served with his knife in WW 2 and in Korea War During WW 2 he served in the US 507th PIR of the 82nd Airborne Division and lost the tip of the knife on D-DAY. (I'm not using the full name as using it involves getting the family's permission)
       
               

Complete Set the name on the cross guard and named sheath 

Special marking on the sheath it self is the 82nd sign makes it very unique 

The Early Indian Head Coin 

collecting the F-S style knives challenge

In my last post I was talking about known author in the field of Fairbairn Sykes knives ,please don't get me wrong, I like his books and I learn a lot from them. His books are a good start for research BUT when you start to dig deeper into the fine details, you see that there is a gray area.

For example the F-S first pattern knives, are known to be made by the Wilkinson company. Although the first pattern knives were manufactured by the Wilkinson company BUT it was not designed by them. That might explain why there are  no known blue prints of the first pattern knife, only for the second pattern knives that were mass produced. The fact that the Wilkinson company only manufactured the knives but didn't design them is very important when we try to decipher who should be credited for the first pattern knife design.  Wilkinson ? Fairbairn ? going all the way back to the 1930's, the era associated with the development of the knife. To conclude the problem is-who is going to be credited for the development of the knives?
So there is a lot of misinformation spread by many people involved in the research of that knives. 

in order to establish their name and get the glory and fame not looking for the truth in that matter.

This is partially the reason that, the bayonet blade f-s style knives known as X daggers or pre f-s knives, are called "fake" by many people in the f-s community. Fake for that matter means that the knives are not from the WW 2 era.

The question that comes up all the time  is, who created theses knives? were they made by Wilkinson or not ? I believe that the answer to who made them is not important. The real question is whether these knives were made before 1945 or  not. Their source plays no role in the discussion surrounding whether they are "fake" or not, they could have been made in a small shade in a fish market and still considered to be genuine WW2 knives.

Another question that was left unanswered, maybe on purpose, is the place of these knives in the development of the f-s knives. Did they preceded the first pattern knives?maybe the first pattern knives are not the first or the only type of knives that were made during the war? is it possible that the first pattern knives are a copy of that style knife ? the answer is simple: we don't know.

There is a theory out there that all the X daggers/F-S style knives originated from one specific individual. I will write more about it in different post. But when you think about it from a bystander point of view, its almost impossible that one man made all of these knives that varies in style, shape and marking, but calling all of them "fake" knives, seems like taking the easy way out.

I think that the problem with the X-Daggers can be attributed partially to the fact that some historians/author's/collectors rather stay in their comfort zone and wouldn't like to be bothered with anything else that could prove that they have been wrong all along.   

             

where is Wilkinson Co in the drawing ? so it must be Fake  

W.E Fairbairn "Get Tough"1942 Paladin Press

Education

Like I said in my last post never judge a knife based on a picture. Here is an example of  how collectors are getting wrong and misleading information from so called "experts" with out even handling a knife. 

I saw in few forums and websites called f-s style knife made of bayonet a "fake" one of the conclusion was the fact that they got a 2nd  pattern handle so I will let you be the judge of that.

This claim came from a known author that never handled the knife.

This is part of reason that he came up with the wrong and misleading information about the knife, creating group of collectors behind him saying the same thing  based on nothing or in some cases luck of knowledge.

here is an interesting fact of why he came with 2nd pattern and not 1st pattern with out even

handling one? based on what looking at someones pictures and coming with conclusions ?  

              

i will not go here right now on the where ? why ? or more important who made it ? not one person that for sure. how do i know ? research- research -research .
i will go in to that in the future.my point is keep an open mind .do your research by doing so you
as collector be open to new and fascinating journey collecting knives.

welcome to my blog

let me start from the end ,why did i create this blog?
this blog was created as a place that knives can be shared , enjoyed and researched in honest way.
with out any hidden agenda of any kind .

i found out many times that you can not share "new " knife with out  forum/group "expert" trying to spread his knowledge with every body about the knife. in most cases i would say its pure speculation with out any real evidence.or  even worse is trying convince every body that his evaluation is correct and its the only one.this place created to be the other way,for any collector that feel the same way as me.i like to research my knives base on facts , if it can't be done then it can go ether way.
even if you are big author or internet "expert" unless you been there when the knife was made,then your theory is good as any "simple" collector . those people are not here to learn or help its only to make a name for them self  as experts or to make you buy knives from them.that is the hidden agenda .
my goal is to offer a different platform, specially in the Fairbairn-Sykes collectors community.
there are a lot of reproduction or not from the 'right era' knives on the market. this is where your research as collector come to play do it your self ,read ,learn, try to understand, ask questions .some times your answer could be as good as any other "expert". never say its not real because "he sad so..." in his website or book make your mind base on your feeling and what you learn .
if  you just looking at pictures and you can not hold the knife in your hand then you should be very careful making judgement. because you are missing the handling part of the knife . this part is where most internet "experts" are losing there value,its up to you as collector to make up your mind and not some else for you.       

my goal  is too build a place  that will respect other collectors property . learn and be open to new ideas.  bring collectors from all over the world together in a place that everybody can share and enjoy the journey into the past together.
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