Antique 3 blade Kabar

[mdlock]

is this knife worth anything? The handle is broken on one side.

[Doc B]

I'd be surprised if you got more than $5 for it...but, if you ever wanted to play around with repair...there are a lot of good tutorials, here on the site. Wouldn't make it worth much more...but looks like it could be made in to a good "user".

[mdlock]

Thank you very much. I will look into it.

[herbva]

Nice knife, but if I am not mistaken the scales look like celluloid which is starting to "out-gas" (decompose) and are now corroding the rest of the knife. I would get the scales replaced or at least removed as quickly as possible and not store it with the rest of your knives.

[Mumbleypeg]

Herb is right, definitely celluloid that has started to outgas. As celluloid deteriorates it produces nitric acid fumes. You can see it has already discolored the bolsters and blades. Once started it’s likely to continue to deteriorate until it destroys the entire knife.

If you want to salvage what remains of the knife, get those handle covers off of it immediately. You may be able to buff out the tarnish but from what I can see it may be too late. The liners are probably brass which is even more sensitive to the acid and may be beyond salvage. In that case the knife is garbage.

Whatever you do, do not allow the knife in proximity of any other knives or metal objects as they will be affected also.

Sorry for the bad news. Hate to see it but celluloid is weird stuff. If you’re not acquainted with it, here is a link to one of many threads here about celluloid outgas viewtopic.php?f=2&t=59998&p=695462&hilit=Outgas#p695337

Ken

[Doc B]

Ditto, what Herbva and Ken said....pull those handles off asap.