Knife and Blade Show

The knife gun show at Medina, Ohio was interesting.  While I sold gave away (almost) some old stock, a lot of the fun comes from watching the people.

I saw one man wearing a tee-shirt saying: Revolutionary War Veterans Association.  He didn’t look that old.  I found out later it seems to be a shooting society dedicated to remembering the more or less forgotten participants of the American Revolutionary War. 

I also told a friend I’d help him price several bayonets his buddy’s dad left behind.  To my surprise I found more than I expected about bayonets.

Both bayonets were Japanese type 30 from WWII.  One was rather crudely made and I expected it to be from production late in WWII.  I found out it was a training bayonet which were often made at schools and homes.  There was no interest in making a quality training bayonet as these were never expected to see combat.  They were often made from cheap, poor quality steel and came with equally shabby scabbards.  These were unsharpened.

WWII souvenirs

The other bayonet was a little gem.  It had the Jinsen Arsenal mark stamped on the blade.  This arsenal isn't rare, but is not considered common.  The best way to describe it I was told was 'un-common.'

The issued bayonet show quality workmanship.  The lower is the poor quality trainer. 

Unfortunately they were poorly taken care of.  Both scabbards were rusty and pitted.  The blades were in the same condition.  It’s hard to understand why dad didn't run a coat of oil on them years ago.  I brushed them down with a brass brush and a little WD-40 and took a lot of surface rust off.  I guess they were not important to him.

The stamp indicates its from the Jinsen armory.  The training bayonet doesn't have any kind of marking. 

Included in the bundle was a German fireman's dress bayonet.  Yeah.  You read it right.  Fire fighters dress bayonet. 

Fireman's bayonet?  What?  He stabs the flames?

The key was the polished blade and the absence of a mounting slot.

There’s no slot to attach the bayonet to a rifle.  That’s because German firefighters didn’t have rifles.

Now, I have no tolerance for Nazi collectables.  I hate those guys, but I’ll give the devil his due:  the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany sure understood symbols and the trappings of power and how to use them.

I also ran into John from Shadow Tech.  He was at the Blade Show and my wife liked one of his damascus fixed blades with an ivory colored micarta handle.  She wanted a minor modification and John and Dave agreed to it.  We paid for it and they had it at Medina.  It’s a ‘double’ Blade Show knife for her.  She ordered it at Blade, but they had to buy ladder damascus from Alabama Damascus at the show to make it.  It’s a sweet knife and the faux carbon fiber kydex makes it pop!

Shadow Tech - My wife's new knife.

Keep your eye on Shadow Tech.  John told me they are going to be covered by unamed national magazines.  A collaboration between ST and Colonial knife is in progress.  I understand Colonial is getting some of Shadow Techs’s patterns and they are going to make some autos for them.

Dave and John from Shadow Tech at the Blade Show with a few good knives!

I can't wait to see their auto!

While not a lawyer, I understand that the Feds regulate shipping of autos and the states seem to decide if automatic (AKA switch blade) knives are legal.  It seems silly in light of the fact most states have CCW and more than one police officer tells me that if they arrest you even that cheap nail clipper with file in your pocket will be written up as a concealed weapon.  I keep running into a woman who swears her community made her take a 12-hour class and get a permit to carry a knife in the city limits.  I understand there was a fee for the class and ‘license process.’  

Speaking of government interference, the proposed ivory ban has people worried.  I’m told there are only 8 sources of ivory: elephant, mastodon and mammoth (both extinct), walrus, hippo, narwhal, sperm whale and warthog.

Here’s where it gets confusing.  We stopped importing whale products in 1986.  We stopped importing elephant ivory 30 years ago.  Nobody cares about fossilized tusk and mastodon tooth because the youngest stuff is 20,000 years old.  And currently wild boars are a problem.  So we should be okay on any ivory in the country.  Right?

Jim Hammond at Blade Show talking about the ivory ban and President Kennedy's love of scrimshaw.

Well, no.  See, the Chinese and Russia still have this unquenchable thirst for ivory.  So the U.S. and others think by punishing American ivory consumers and owners we’ll send a message to the rest of the world.  By not allowing the internal sales of legally obtained ivory, it becomes worthless.  

The government sees us as the bottom level of a vast Chinese crime syndicate. (If so, I need a raise!!)  By pressuring you to give up your source of illegal ivory, they can trace it back to Lo Fat Way or some other imagined ganister and terrorist.

Sandra Brady, scrimshaw artist supreme, at the Blade Show talking about the impact the proposed ban on ivory will have.

Your source?  That’s the Vatican cameo your grandmother left you, soon to be made worthless.  Uncle George’s ivory handled revolver from the Spanish American war - can’t sell it with those grips!  The possibilities go on.  This includes all those scrimshaw ivory handles that decorate knives, jewelry and musical instruments. 

Now frankly, it’s not too important to me.  I don’t own any ivory.  My family doesn’t own any ivory.  My retirement or future plans don’t revolve around ivory.  I just dislike the fact the government can seize your property on mere suspicion and you are forced to prove your innocence.  If you cannot, you may go to jail.  

In any case you’ll lose your property just to make a ideological statement to China, Japan and Russia that killing elephants for ivory is unacceptable.  Remember the world banned hunting whales, but Japan still takes about 60 whales a year for “research.”  

(In Japan's parliament last month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he would like the country to resume commercial whaling "in order to obtain scientific information indispensable to the management of the whale resources.")

The only one concerned with world opinion seems to be the U.S.

You want to save the elephants?  Great!!!!

Tell your government to send the money they would spend enforcing these ridiculous and un-American laws to the African agencies who are in the field protecting elephants from poachers.  That will make a difference, not confiscating ivory from an animal dead for 30 years. 

Oops!  Looks like rant mode was on!