Incredibly Rare Knife on eBay - Holley Charter Oak(Possibly)

[dcgm4]

If real this is a very rare and historic knife. Though it might not be authentic. The seller dates the provenance to 1902. According to authors Roy Ritchie and Ron Stewart, the year of manufacture should be 1911. What do you all think?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HOLLEY-MFG-CHAR ... 2583edcab6

For those who may be unfamiliar with the Charter Oak see the link below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_Oak

[Ramrod]

2 fuzzy pics on a knife they're asking $5k for ?


Mark

[dcgm4]

2 fuzzy pics on a knife they're asking $5k for ?


Mark

Actually more. $5k is just the opening bid. There's still a reserve to be met.

Fuzzy pictures (looks like they used a scanner), questionable provenance, and a steep price should scare any potential buyers away I would think.

[Miller Bro's]

The asking price is ridiculous, someone should put in a large bid to see what his reserve is, then retract the bid

[dcgm4]

The asking price is ridiculous, someone should put in a large bid to see what his reserve is, then retract the bid

Go for it, man! You know you won't be able to satisfy your curiosity unless you do.

[Miller Bro's]

The auction ended at $6,300 reserve not met

[wlf]

There is always a justifiable return.The shield placement on the cut in the 1915 catalog seems a little off from the one for sale.

Two pictures of the SAME side,neither show the blades with any clarity????? Would 150 year old wood look that new?

[danno50]

I emailed him twice asking for better pictures that weren't blurry. He replied that if you blew up his pictures they were lot's good enough. Told him that no knife collector would pay that price based on those pictures. He replied to thank me for my opinion and that he had decided he wouldn't ship to Canada. I wasn't interested in it anyway, just wanted to see better pictures.
Dan

[RobesonsRme.com]

I would think that the wood from a 150 year old tree would look new up until the time the tree died.

I don't recall the facts about The Charter Oak to recall its age when it died or when, in fact, it did die, or how long after that Holley actually made the knives.

I think Bruce Volyes discussed these knives in his ABCA Price Guide to Antique Knives.

I need to refresh my memory.

In my opinion, a Charter Oak Holley should be considered so rare that one would never seriously consider an Ebay auction as a safe venue through which to buy one, especially an auction with a no return policy.

Charlie Noyes

[Miller Bro's]

From what I can see in the blurry pictures the knife looks legitimate.

Rare? yes, at $6,300 I would have run all the way to the bank

[0078]

If someone wants that much money and all you request is some better pics, and they decline to do so. That would send some type of warning to me real or fake.

[danno50]

Here is what Ritchie and Stewart have to say about it in the 5th edition of their Standard Knife Collector's Guide.

Dan

[RobesonsRme.com]

So, at the time of publication of that issue of Stewart & Ritchie, as far as they knew, no known examples existed.

Then Lo and Behold, a mint example appears on Ebay, in a knife purse with the COA.

Possible? yes.

Probable? Color me skeptical.

Has anybody here ever seen one of these?

Does anyone know of the existence of another?

Could Stewart & Ritchie's 1911 date be in error?

If this knife is legitimate and if it happens to be the only known example, why would the seller's reserve of greater than at least $6300.00 be out of line?

I know it sounds like I'm wobbling a bit here, I'm still skeptical.

Charlie Noyes

[Miller Bro's]

If this knife is legitimate and if it happens to be the only known example, why would the seller's reserve of greater than at least $6300.00 be out of line?

I know it sounds like I'm wobbling a bit here, I'm still skeptical.

I will say again I believe it is legitimate, would I shell out $6K without looking at it in hand? No.

I looked at the sellers previous sales, just about all old coins. How does he know what this knife is worth if there are no published values. I think he was fishing with this auction to see how high a price it would achieve, probably had a $20K reserve on it.

[knife7knut]

Boy! This auction raises so many red flags it looks like a Mao rally.
At least we know what the back of the pouch looks like;wonder if that was made from the bark of the Charter Oak?
Where is the certificate of authenticity that Holley issued with each knife? For someone to preserve the knife and pouch so well and neglect the most important part is questionable at best.Even if the paper deteriorated over time there should still be fragments of it remaining.
The seller's reluctance to supply more and better photographs is another,"Mao moment".
Likewise the no return policy disclaimer.ANY person dealing in high end items will usually offer such a policy.
The only thing missing is the red background for the pictures.
To be fair the one redeeming feature of the auction is the fact that it looks like a near-mint 4 blade Holley is for sale.That in itself is probably worth several hundred dollars to a dedicated Holley collector.

[RobesonsRme.com]

The notary letter is in those other two scans. You have to click on them and enlarge them to be able to read them. They look like old mimeograph copies to me. Blue ink, anyway.

The purse doesn't look like real leather to me.

But.....

I trust Dimitri's judgment in all things knife related.

If that is now the only known example of this knife, then 20K is probably not out of line, but Ebay and those lousy scans are not going to get it for him.

Holley made two versions of this knife. There was a smaller 2 5/8" two blade version as well.

The larger knife was listed at $6.00 and the smaller at $3.00.

http://books.google.com/books?id=omzraD ... fe&f=false

I'm still bothered by the date discrepancy between the notary's form at 1902 and Stewart & Ritchie at 1911.

Charlie Noyes

[knife7knut]

Thanks Charlie;I went back and looked at them.OK here is my take on the document.

The blue ink could be indicative of a carbon copy of the authentication letter. The wording SEEMS to be indicative of the time period(i.e.: the way the word,"manufacturing is abbreviated). What troubled me at first was the corrections on the piece(the inadvertant making of the word Lakeville into 2 words)but I have several documents of the same time period that show similar errors. Another thing that troubled me was the use of a capital I in place of the numeral one in the date.It was used in a couple of places. Also it appears that whoever originally typed it was not very proficient with a typewriter as the lower case letter L is much darker than others.This sometimes occurs with letters that are not used much on a typewriter and as such aren't gummed up with ink residue but it is also characteristic of someone who only types with 2 fingers and is unfamiliar with the keyboard layout.
I also studied the signatures which are very puzzling.It appears that either a pen with a very small nib was used necessitating going over the letters a couple of times leaving the double lines or the pen nib was brand new and slightly concave allowing just the two edges of the tip to contact the paper leaving a weak spot in the middle.They are done that way to allow for wear.However that also allows the nib to skip a lot requiring you to re-trace the lettering frequently.That doesn't appear to happen here.
If I didn't know better I would say that the signatures were done with a type of pantograph that copys a person's signature from an original.They are pretty common today(presidents and other dignitaries use them)and give the appearance of a hand done signature without the person having to do a bunch of them.That would account for the relative evenness of the strokes. I don't think those machines were available in that era.
Sorry for the long rant on a likely irrelevant subject.


EDIT: It also looks like the first page was cut off and spliced and there were more lines to the text.

[carrmillus]

Boy! This auction raises so many red flags it looks like a Mao rally.
At least we know what the back of the pouch looks like;wonder if that was made from the bark of the Charter Oak?
Where is the certificate of authenticity that Holley issued with each knife? For someone to preserve the knife and pouch so well and neglect the most important part is questionable at best.Even if the paper deteriorated over time there should still be fragments of it remaining.
The seller's reluctance to supply more and better photographs is another,"Mao moment".
Likewise the no return policy disclaimer.ANY person dealing in high end items will usually offer such a policy.
The only thing missing is the red background for the pictures.
To be fair the one redeeming feature of the auction is the fact that it looks like a near-mint 4 blade Holley is for sale.That in itself is probably worth several hundred dollars to a dedicated Holley collector.

..if the tree was destroyed in 1856, it would seem to me that the charter oak knives would have been made before the turn of the century???...... ...........

[dcgm4]

..if the tree was destroyed in 1856, it would seem to me that the charter oak knives would have been made before the turn of the century???...... ...........

Not necessarily. After the Charter Oak fell a lot of people took pieces of it as souvenirs. Some took enough wood to make chairs and other furniture. Connecticut's governor has a desk made from the Charter Oak and the state's Speaker of the House and President of the Senate have chairs also made from the wood.

Take a look at this painting of the Charter Oak from 1857. It was a big tree. A lot of items could have been made from the wood.

Most likely Holley purchased some of these items and re-purposed the wood to make scales for these knives.

[carrmillus]

...........wonder if it was a live oak???.....sure looks like one???............... ...................

[dcgm4]

I'm not sure. I did a bit more research. It turns out the Charter Oak fell August 21, 1856 during a rain and wind storm. So the painting above was done after the tree had fallen.

Anyways, below is a link that has more information about the Charter Oak. There are even a couple of pictures of the tree, including one of it after it fell.

http://connecticuthistory.org/the-charter-oak-fell/

[carrmillus]

I'm not sure. I did a bit more research. It turns out the Charter Oak fell August 21, 1856 during a rain and wind storm. So the painting above was done after the tree had fallen.

Anyways, below is a link that has more information about the Charter Oak. There are even a couple of pictures of the tree, including one of it after it fell.

http://connecticuthistory.org/the-charter-oak-fell/

........after seeing the real photo, I don't think it was a live oak??.....most of the old live oaks here have a spread that is more than the height???............... .............

[galvanic1882]

I did not follow this thread when it was up but have some more info on the Charter Oak knife, in fact I have one right now. I have been helping the family of and old collector sell some of his knives and the Charter Oak was in the latest roll that they sent me. Pics of the knife are attached. I don't have the certificate that came with them or the purse just the knife. As you can see from the pictures it's seen some use. Knife is 3 1/4" closed.

The knives were made before 1911 according to the links below. I've seen 3 of them in all the years of hunting knives. One is in a collection in NY, the one on ebay and now this one.

Here are the links:

https://books.google.com/books?id=p38zA ... fe&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=cdUcA ... &q&f=false

[btrwtr]

Good post and rare knife Mike. I see quite a few differences in the knives.

Different pulls.

Different swedges.

Different engraving on the shields.

Different blade kicks.

I've never seen one in the flesh. The book cut looks like the OP knife. Not to say the book cut is the legit knife or that there could not have been variations of the knife .

Most times I tend to be more trusting of knives with honest wear and suspicious of old Mint knives.

[Miller Bro's]