All About Pocket Knives

Great bunch of knives!

I have one that I am curious about. It is a Walker & Hall, Sheffield. It's 3 5/16" closed. When we bought it, I didn't even know we were buying a silver knife. The pictures were poor on Ebay & the scales were completely black. When I got it, I realized that it was tarnished & took out my rag and wiped it down. There are no markings to indicate that it is silver. Does that indicate that it is just plated?

knifegirl888 wrote:There are no markings to indicate that it is silver. Does that indicate that it is just plated?

The English were pretty critical about marking stuff that was made out of Silver.

The blade is plated steel, take a magnet to it and see if it sticks, I bet it will

The handles almost appear to be Aluminum to my eye, but if they were black when you got it they too could be plated as well.

It is an interesting piece...

The magnet does stick to the blade, but not the handle. The blade itself had tarnish on it also, plated steel would be correct.

The handles being aluminum plated silver sounds like the right assumption. It was very tarnished when I got it. I would think if it was all silver, it would have had to have been marked somewhere.

knifegirl888 wrote:The handles being aluminum plated silver sounds like the right assumption.

No, they would never plate aluminum with silver.

I meant if the handles were black when you got it, they could be silver plated Steel handles.

That`s why you should never rush to clean and polish an old knife

Now, if the the handles were just oxidized and not black, then the handles might just be Aluminum.

The best way to tell is to do a silver acid test on it, inside the carved decoration.

It may very well be silver, but it should be Hallmarked or at least marked Sterling.

Thanks, MB.

I am still learning. I actually got this knife maybe a year ago, when I first became interested in knives. I didn't realize that cleaning a knife was a bad thing back then.

Seeing Draac's Wostenholm (which is a beauty) reminded me of a Wostenholm that I have. It has Sterling written on the scale on the larger end.

A nice little silver fruit knife.

Made in England, sterling blade, hallmarked.

Threaded bolsters and nicely carved MOP handles.

These knives were hand engraved with the scales on the knife. If a mistake was made the handle would have to be removed and another put on.

Wow!! That's a great knife & a great deal!

knifegirl888 wrote:Wow!! That's a great knife & a great deal!

Thanks knifegirl888 also I looked at the edge very closely with a loop and I can not see that it was ever sharpened. That too is a plus.

Draac

Draac,

You really have a great collection of these. What a quality collection! Thanks for posting them!

Wow, guys........love to see the delicate carvings on those pearls.
SWEET!

Paul

Draac,

All very nice knives.

That T. Marples is just superb

Draac,

That pearl is so pretty & full of fire. That is hard to capture in photos & I can see the pinks and blues in the second photo. NICE!

Draac wrote:Learning about hallmarks, do you feel by what you see on this knife that I got this right?

Looks right to me

Miller Bro`s wrote:

Draac wrote:Learning about hallmarks, do you feel by what you see on this knife that I got this right?

Looks right to me

Thanks Miller Bro`s. I just ordered 2 books on hallmarks. I would like to really get to know about them, the info could benefit me at yard sales and flee markets.

This is an unusual one I found today.

It is only 2 3/8" long. It is shaped just like a Quill knife. The blosters are Grooved Sterling Silver. The blade is Sterling. The pins are low grade Gold. the handles are firey MOP.

No makers marks on this one.

Very nice!

Your off to a good start

Draac,

I have the same knife with the same marks. I don`t know how to date American made Fruit knives. The English had a superior system of marks that, as you know, allows you to date a knife to a specific year. That is otherwise unheard of in the antique knife collecting world.

The closest you can come to finding a date would be to obtain old factory catalogs and see when a pattern appeared and the disappeared. But finding these are few and far between.

D