The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

Another direction my collecting illness takes me is in the collecting of vintage military knives. I spend a lot of time on ebay sorting through the knife listings looking for a bargain. What is amazing to me is how many assholes who own Dremel tools get their hands on collectable knives. You can find what was, until recently, a really nice knife that the latest owner wanted to improve by "sharpening" and "polishing." Both processes are completed with a coarse stone run at high speed on the Dremel. You know that it was just done, because the rest of the blade will have the correct patina for the age and the "improvements" are fresh and shiny....

The other issue is people who are too damn dumb to research the stuff they are selling. I will not sell anything that I do not have any idea what it is, or what the market value is. The usual "error" is listing a Bud K, Pakistani knife as a WWII fighting knife, but then again there are the "power sellers" who have now idea what they have. Last week I saw a listing for a WWII Cattaraugus knife that got me to open the listing. The knife was listed as a Cattaraugus with wooden handles. The photo showed a Jet Pilot knife or JPK as they were known in Vietnam. The question in my mind was, Is this a military knife or a cheap Japanese copy and is it a wartime knife. If it was a Wartime Camillus knife it was a really good bargain at the listed price, but the photos were too shitty to tell what it was. Since the knife was listed completely wrong, I took advantage of it knowing that It could be returned as "not as advertised" and ordered it. (I had my own wood for the seller) It arrived yesterday and it was what I hoped it was, and I made out well.

Here is what a "wooden handle" Cattaraugus looks like with the rust and grime removed: (without using a Dremel)

I am two times a power seller on eBay, I always know what I am selling before I decide to sell it I do love the ones who sell things they don't know anything about and are too lazy to research it, I make a lot of money off such people. I see the grinder sharpening jobs on many bayonets that walk in here. One guy has brought me at least six such bayonets, real butcher jobs, and six times I had to tell him the bayonet was worth far less than he paid because of Bubba and the bench grinder. You would think he would learn, but maybe he likes getting fucked in a deal. He brings them here thinking he can get me to pay him $20 more than he paid for them, good luck with that. I don't collect bayonets unless I have a rifle to fit them on, I don't collect blades at all unless I need a knife. That is an entire field of collecting all on it's own. Nice blade

Funny thing is bayonet guy keeps making the same mistake about guns too. Last night he brings in one of the H&R early 70's repops of the 1863 Springfield, going on about how someone told him these trade for $1400 or whatever ( closer to $1100 in top shape I think) I said yea, if the barrel wasn't cut down 6", the stock forend cut off, an aftermarket ramrod attached, and 300 coats of poly slathered all over it so thick the remaining band spring looked like it was under glass. $100 worth of parts assuming the lock was good. I put up with this crap because one day he walked in here with a filthy double shotgun that after ten hours of careful cleaning of layered filth ( looked like at least 50 layers of dried whale oil) turned out to be a Winchester Class A 12 gauge 1878-1884 double shotgun imported from England by Winchester before they made their own shotguns and fucking priceless. He insisted I buy that crappy looking thing before he would show me the Mauser's I really wanted, so I gave in and handed him the C note he wanted. Even I didn't know what the hell it was until I went searching to find out why an obviously English gun would have the Winchester name on it. Cleaned up nice, no wood issues, nice bores, now buried in my collection. This is why you ALWAYS research anything you are going to buy, or part with, ALWAYS, because you could be fucking yourself out of thousands of dollars. What gets me is that idiot either got that gun for free at some attic cleanout, or paid $25 for it at most, so there are two idiot sellers out there on the same item. There will not be three

Damn I gave 3 ammo cans full of those knifes away about 7 years ago. I still have the one I carried in survival school though, I think it's dated 1969.

We put these knives in the multi-place life raft accessory kit, in survival kits, and also attached them to survival vests. For us they were as common as a notepad. When I first came in we had to take liquid leather shoe dye and dye the sheaths and handles black. When we went to the new Gerber knife on the new SOS survival vest, we no longer dyed the ones for the survival kits.

I need to pull mine out and get a picture of it along with the Gerber replacement. Oh and we referred to the knife as "5 inch hunting knife with sheath", never heard the JPK nomenclature until after I retired and read it on the internet. So I really don't know when the term JPK was used but it had to be sometime prior to 86 when I came in.