Why Is A Penny Like A Knife?

I had hoped to shoot a Saturday evening match, but I started working on my father’s coin collection and lost track of time.  Most of his coins are from circulation so they have little collection value other than face value.  It was the excess coins that troubled me.

What’s a lot of pennies from 1949 to 1960 worth?  Let’s start off with the fact they are ‘wheat backs’ which are no longer minted.  Also understand they minted millions of each wheat penny each year.  Nobody knows if they will be worth anything for at least 150 years.  I base that on a large penny I have from 1848 in good condition that might be worth $3 bucks.   

Current pennies are a copper clad zinc coin, but these are solid copper.  I checked the selling price of copper, the weight of a penny and 158 pennies could earn you around 2 bucks.  I suspect many US metal recyclers will not want to handle pennies, afraid of laws about defacing US currency.  Factor in the cost of a trip to Canada where a US penny just is a disk of copper, and I suspect you need to take tons to come out ahead.

Many of the coins in circulation have features raised above the coin’s rim and are quickly eroded way along with their value.  Most Indian head nickels have lost their date and you might be able to sell such a worn coin for 8 to 10 cents.  It seems during the Depression, hobos would carve an Indian head nickel to resemble some other figure and would try to trade their handy work for a meal or shot of Ol’Red Eye.  So there is still a small market for the coin as artistic media.

So it goes with most coins in circulation, a dime without silver is worth 10 cents.  A Kennedy post 1964 half dollar might be worth a few cents more to a collector or someone who want to imitate George Raff flipping a coin.

The only real way to make money on most circulated coins, other than to spend ‘em is to sell them to other new collectors who can no longer find a 1941-S penny.  From my knife selling experience, forget ebay.  You could rent tables at coin, hobby, and flea markets, spending a lot of weekends to make peanuts.  You should prepare to spend years to sell circulated coins with a face value of $100.

So what does this have to do with knives?

Knife collectors are kind of in the same situation.  If your heirs aren’t interested in your collection, they will want to sell it.  So what’s a fair price?  There aren’t that many people willing to plunk down bucks for used Case knife.  If you have one from the 1930s, it may be valuable to the right person, but you’ve got to find that person.  Even custom and semi-custom knives go out of style and drop in price as the maker becomes more obscure.

Yes, there are exceptions.  Loveless, Randall and others are still in demand, partially because the organizations still exist and are still making knives.  Others aren’t so lucky.  Most factory made knives only drop in appreciation as newer design and more sophisticated steels are introduced. 

It is a nice little knife in its own right.  Does the blade engraving make it more valuable or less valuable?
I think more to me, less to everyone else.

As knife collectors we are told to list or provide documentation to our heirs to help them understand what we believe the knife is worth.  We are often guilty of over-evaluating our collection.  We would like to believe the club knife or special event knife should be worth more, especially if only a few were made and it’s old.  The same with knife lines no longer manufactured.  Scarcity and age do not determine price.  Price is determined by the transaction between seller and buyer.  And it can be different on any single day depending on who’s at the table and how much each wants to buy and sell.

So, do I have a solution to the coin and knife collector?  Of course I do!

It’s a two part solution.  The first is selling your collection yourself.  You enjoyed putting it together; now enjoy haggling and selling it.  You’ll make, lose or break even on the deal, but at least you’ll have fun doing it.  The second part is don’t worry about it.  Enjoy your collection while you can and let the heirs deal with it.  So what if the kids sell your custom made ivory handled Fairbairn-Sykes combat dagger for 50 bucks and threw in a sharpening stone. 

It isn’t like you can use the money, is it?

Off The Leash

Since when do we find weather the new source of chills, goose bumps and scary things that go creak in the night?  Why do we find it entertaining when the weather person gets on the tube and tells us it could be bad weather ahead, (assuming the parameters don’t change over the next three days) and the facebookers announce that they have traded their car for a two-person dog sled and 100 pounds of potatoes.  

I use to work with a bunch of Texans, who at the mere mention of snowy driving conditions, would raid the vending machines and horde candy above the ceiling tiles in their office.  And I want to say  categorically, no evidence of cannibalism was ever suspected or even found.  At least they had good reasons.  They never saw snow before, but the rest of us? 

Anyway, the Medina knife gun show was pretty empty.  A lot of vendors got snowed in at home, frightened off or just plain figured it would be poor show.  And they were right.  Saturday was very empty, but I don’t know why.  It took me about 45 minutes to drive in because I slowed down to 40-45 but the roads were drivable.  It would have been a good day for bargain hunters.  Most of the vendors needed a sale and could be talked down to a better price.

By Sunday the roads were clear and we got a few more walk-arounds and quite a few more walking sellers.   I don’t know if it was the need to raise cash for Christmas bills, got a better one for Christmas, or had too much money tied up in weapons.  Many people had simply stocked up in anticipation of a presidency that would order out the troops to go house to house in search of guns, bullets and any knives other than the plastic ones you get at Mickey D’s.

Don’t sit there smug you muzzle loaders, you and those 1776 assault rifles would have been next!

I welcomed one man to my table, telling him he was free to handle the knives.  He confessed he was just looking, cause he didn’t have any money.  I told him that’s okay, because none of the knives were for sale. 

I’ve got to give him credit.  He came back with “Except for what sticks to my hands,” but I informed him that I was sure that I and the police would manage to get the knife free.  He didn’t buy anything, but then again he said he didn’t have any money.

One of my potential customers had some specific needs and no matter how I tried I couldn’t find the right knife for him.  He was, or perhaps I should say, is an elderly fellow with a bad case of the shakes.  The shakes rob him of both strength and dexterity.  He wanted a knife that he could open with one hand and it would lock open.  It had to be a small, quality knife with a pocket clip and of course it had to be cheap.

Now cheap is an interesting word.  Some people think an $8 dollar steak meal is expensive and others think a $45 steak meal, without bar bill, is cheap.  I understand it.  But personally, when I have to purchase something to make-up for my inabilities I expect to pay more, rather than less.

I had a small, Gerber with a great price, but it was too hard to open and didn’t have a pocket clip.  I showed him a Spyderco Delica, too big and too hard to move the blade with his fingers.  I showed him several others but they were too hard to open single-handed and he insisted it had to be a one-hand opener and small.  Frankly, small was his enemy.  With his loss of strength and dexterity, a larger knife would have given him more surface to grip and better leverage, but he insisted on small.  I skipped over the Benchmades with flippers and showed him a nice sized auto.  I thought I had a winning card for this fellow.  Boker makes a small auto for 45 bucks.  Too expensive for him.  I had to admit defeat and send him on his way.

Boker Auto

I don’t think he’ll find a knife to match his rigid expectations.

I also had a fellow with an absolutely beautiful damascus knife that he wanted to sell.  I don’t have a picture of it, but let’s give words a try.

It had a shape similar to a Gurkha Kukri made from 250-some fold damascus steel.  The damascus had strong lines and formed a raindrop pattern.  The blade edge was split into front and back edges by a decorative structure resembling a single 3 inch row of corn kernels still on the cob.

It only took one look to realize that it was a classic wall hanging, ‘barbeque knife’ for the man cave.  My seller confided in me, when I indicated that as much as I liked the knife it wasn’t right for me, that he was in a financial bind.  He just bought a gun and owed his buddy 80 bucks.  Still, there wasn’t a maker’s mark or name stamp on the knife and it just looked too good.  I knew that even for 80 bucks, it might take years to find the right buyer. 

Did I miss the bargain of the show?  Did someone sell everything they had to buy this pearl of great price?  I don’t know.  But I doubt it.

Winding Down

The legal battle on pocket knives continues in NY City. The current law defines a knife that can be flipped open as illegal. This means if you buy a knife which neither you nor the salesperson can flip open, it’s legal until you run in to the cop who can flip it open. It may be the first or the 23rd cop. As I understand it each officer has three chances to wrist flip it open. You can image the impact it has on any cutlery store in NYC!

The NY City DA is determined to resist any change to a more intelligent view (mine of course!) that the activity of the knife owner is more important than how the knife opens.

Closer to home:

Ohio knife laws are confusing at best, but Ohio State Senator Frank LaRose has introduced, Senate Bill 242, Knife Rights' bill to repeal Ohio's ban on the manufacture and sale of "switchblade, springblade, and gravity knives."

The announcement blurb claims: “While Ohio statutes allow for the possession and carry of these knives, but they cannot be manufactured or sold in the state.”

A check of Ohio state laws appear to take the position that a butterfly knife (for example) is both legal and illegal at the same time. Some of this confusion is from case law and it appears that a legal knife becomes illegal when you use it in an illegal manner. This makes more sense than the NYC wrist flip test.

Thus a steak knife becomes illegal when you chase someone down the street threatening to cut their ear off, but not while you eat a pork chop.

Please contact your state senator and urge them to support the bill. A nice note to the Governor wouldn’t hurt. Ohio has several knife manufacturers that currently must have autos produced out of state and it does represent lost economic power for Ohio.

http://www.knifeup.com/ohio-knife-laws/



On the upbeat side:

Buck unveils new knives, including their new auto, (I’ve handled the new Buck auto and the jury is still out in my opinion.)

Al Mar is working with both TOPS and Kershaw to license their designs
and
Spyderco releases their new 2018 catalog.


Have a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy, Heathy New Year.

Knifing Through The Sky

I finally broke down and bought one.  I’ve seen them for years and always wanted one, but could never pull the trigger.  My favorite dealer was down to one last knife, so I bought it.

The German Parachute Gravity Knife history seems to start at WWII, which makes sense.  That was the first war that used parachutist as troops.  The original knife had a wooden handle.  Later models had plastic grips.  I think mine is a Type IV FKm.  These knives were essentially a utility knife designed to help free a parachutist tangled up in a tree.  The spike isn’t for combat, it doesn’t lock open nor used for ice chopping.  It can be used as a pry bar of sorts, but chiefly to help with knots.  So much for the theory it was to chop up an ice block to better cool bottles of beer.  (I did see a similar knife made by Eickhorn that I swear had a bottle opener built in!)

You flip the toggle lever on top 180 degrees and press down.  This allows the blade to slide out.

The OD green handle has BUND molded into the grip.  That’s short for Bundeswehr or German Armed Forces.  I guess that’s no surprise.  With the blade open it’s about 10 inches long while the handle is just over 6 inches in length.  My blade is marked OFW, which is one of three listed manufacturers: OFW, OWF and the previously met, Eickhorn.

The knife is a little chewed up, but not bad.  This type was manufactured from 1961 to 1979 when it was replaced by the type V also known as the LL80.  It’s still in production.

I don't understand the legal prohibition against this knife.  It open slower than most assisted opening knives and is a lot noisier.  What can I say, old laws and a government too busy making new laws to remove the useless ones.

What surprised me is the weight.  It’s a very heavy knife (9.8 ounces!) composed of many steel layers.  For a knife specifically issued to help free a parachutist from trees, it seems poorly designed.  I would have expected a razor sharp hook blade.  That seems like the kind of edge I’d want if I was trying to cut my way free of risers and lines.  I’m not sure why I’d worry about knots either. 

Mine is also remarkably dull.  It will slice paper, but no better than a blunt letter opener and will not cut paracord at all.  I’ll fix that later.  I like all my knives, even collectibles to have an edge and sharpening this one will not lower its value.

While the knife is very cool, the advertisements for sales, especially the auction sites, are hysterical!  The knife is often listed, correctly as, Type IV and then described as a Special Forces Pilot Knife of very rare status. It sold for over $200! 

Knots?  I've landed behind enemy lines and I'm worried about knots?

Another site described the blade as laser cut 440A steel, ice quenched.  Well, the first operational laser was 1960 in California.  It was a synthetic ruby crystal powered by a flash lamp.  The lasers of this era were rated in Gillettes.  That’s how many Gillette double edge carbon steel razor blades a laser could burn through in a minute.  I doubt anyone was cutting out knife blades with lasers by 1979.  And I suspect if you quenched a red hot knife blade in ice water you’d get scrap steel.

As Mr. Barnum once said,  “There’s a sucker born every minute!”  Mrs. Barnum is reported to have replied “Oh, that poor Mrs. Sucker!”