Got two knives delivered this morning, not by the mail man but by one of our neighbors.
Our dear neighbor is a widow lady, a bit younger than Miss Joy and me, she usually comes on Thursday and helps with the house cleaning. Well this morning I was helping another neighbor gather a bunch of Jalapeno peppers when our neighbor lady drove up. Later when I went in the house she said, " Mr. Phil, I want to give you these." She laid out two Queen folding hunters, one the single blade #44 that I had seen it before, plus she had a #39 also laying on the counter. The 44 was her fathers, the 39 was her step fathers and she wanted me to have both of them. Needless to say I was touched by her gracious gifts. I asked if her son might want the knives and she said he has a Case knife and he's not interested in old ones.
The 44 has a stamp that in some charts indicates it was made in '46-'48 era, others say '52-'55. Either way it has some age on it. I'd prefer it to be the '46-'48 closer to my year of mfg.
The #39 has the '58-'60 stamp like my EDC #49. I told her I would accept the #44 as a special gift from her since it was her father's knife but I would need to pay her for the #39.
The 44 needs a bit of maintenance work. There is a tiny crack showing up on the small end of the Winterbottom bone on the pile side that can probably be remedied with some super glue and the kick needs to be filed just a tad to lower the proud tip. The #39 has full blades but has suffered a bit from something more than a normal whet rock. The etch is still bright.
It is really special to have an old knife that you know some about the owner and some of what he did in our community.
- 2 HOKs
Treefarmer
Hopefully when the powers that be get all the bugs worked out, I'll try again. This is frustrating to say the least. 
