MINIATURE KNIVES/TRAVELLERS SAMPLES FOR COMMENT

[kahnjar1]

Believed to be Traveller's selling sample knives from the early 20th Century. These knives all have slab sided bone grips and are in various eastern knife styles.
The quality of the workmanship is rather good and the steel blades hold a good edge.
Comments and information please.
Regards Stuart

[Dom]

Hi Stuard
amazing and funny

à +

Dom

[Rick]

Hi Stu,
My impression is that they're too crude to be sales samples .
Morelike souvenirs maybe .

[spiral]

I hope I am wrong stu, but arent these modern Pakistani or Indian items?

There larger brothers of identical workmanship I always dismiss as fakes when they turn up in English auctions ovrr the last 20 yrars or so.

Perhaps I am mistaken? Not realy my field but just my obsevation of materials,workmanship & style.

Spiral

[kahnjar1]

Originally Posted by spiral

I hope I am wrong stu, but arent these modern Pakistani or Indian items?

There larger brothers of identical workmanship I always dismiss as fakes when they turn up in English auctions ovrr the last 20 yrars or so.

Perhaps I am mistaken? Not realy my field but just my obsevation of materials,workmanship & style.

Spiral

Possible, but they appear of much better quality than those in advert herewith, which was kindly sent to me by Gene (Atlantia). All I can say is that the Gentleman who had them for "many years", had always believed that they were travellers samples.

[spiral]

Interesting, ive never seen ones like Genes shown you in what I guess is a world wide arms catalouge? {I wonder how many dealers on this forum have flogged..... woops I better not say that..... might upset far to many people.}

But I have seen dozens of larger versians of what look like identical pieces to your minatue examples. look at the rivets, the poor shape of blades, course camel or buffalo bone grips, crude semi Persian revival carving etc.

Belief is a powerfull thing, its probably been responsible for more problems & death in the world than even greed has.

But we all our own.....right or wrong. even me.....

I realy dont know with definity about these, but know how they look to me.But thats just my belief so it could be wrong.

Spiral

[thinreadline]

Further to my comments that these were being sold by World Wide Arms at least 15 years ago , I contacted my son and he still had the set I bought for him 15 years ago and he has sent me a picture of the group, which to all intents is the same as the set under discussion. To reiterate , just because they were sold by WWA it does not mean they are fake, as WWA have been responsible for importing some unusual and rare items in the past ( though some of their current stuff is recently made Indian / Chinese copies ) . But it does mean that there are many such sets around .
One of the best things World Wide Arms had on offer which I remember from the early 1980s was a complete set of elephant armour mounted on a wicker 'elephant' in their top floor storeroom next to Weller & Dufty's in Birmingham .It was £10,000 ... how I now wish I had bought it when I realise how much the Royal Armouries paid for theirs ! Though in those days I bought a 3 bed semi for only 2 grand more and my wife oddly enough preferred a house to an armoured elephant ! Ah well .

[spiral]

Originally Posted by thinreadline

Further to my comments that these were being sold by World Wide Arms at least 15 years ago , I contacted my son and he still had the set I bought for him 15 years ago and he has sent me a picture of the group, which to all intents is the same as the set under discussion. To reiterate , just because they were sold by WWA it does not mean they are fake, as WWA have been responsible for importing some unusual and rare items in the past ( though some of their current stuff is recently made Indian / Chinese copies ) . .

By 1990 at the latest, {Lets be genourous say 20 years ago} they were having made, fake 1917 marked kukri British army Issue stamped kukri that unscroupulous dealers still buy & use to con naive or inexpierienced collectors.

There still making & selling them today. I`d guess when the real stuff ran out 30 years ago the fakes came in wholesale.

Spiral

[thinreadline]

Originally Posted by spiral

By 1990 at the latest, {Lets be genourous say 20 years ago} they were having made, fake 1917 marked kukri British army Issue stamped kukri that unscroupulous dealers still buy & use to con naive or inexpierienced collectors.

There still making & selling them today. I`d guess when the real stuff ran out 30 years ago the fakes came in wholesale.

Spiral

There is a trick to telling fake from real in WWA descriptions. They choose their words very carefully eg a Kukri of the British Army PATTERN / STYLE / TYPE etc .. ie they dont say this is a British Army kukri .

[spiral]

Originally Posted by thinreadline

There is a trick to telling fake from real in WWA descriptions. They choose their words very carefully eg a Kukri of the British Army PATTERN / STYLE / TYPE etc .. ie they dont say this is a British Army kukri .

I know that & so do you, the thousands of naive & inexpierienced people who dont realise that "trick" get ripped of. {particularily when the word pattern is used, {Which of course why its the is the term they usualy use.}

Most re.sellers also forget to mention it of course!

Also the term pattern can be very subjective in British army weapons, after all many swords etc are generaly refered to as 1796 pattern etc.

But we both know all this of couse......

Cheers,
Spiral