an interesting find today

[Whosyer]

So I'm scrounging around in my Dad's shop today, looking for some key stock, and I stumble across an old knife. A big knife. I ask Pops if he knows anything about it, and of course he does. ( Dad is 86 years old, and has a little trouble with what happened yesterday, but remembers everything from way back) Anyway, he remembers finding this knife laying in the road near his work, back in 1957. It's in pretty rough shape. So I take it with me and start doing a little cleaning, and find markings on one side that say "U.S. MOD 1917 C.T." After a google search I find it's a WW1 Bolo fighting knife. Pretty cool. I've never seen one before, but then again I'm no real knife guru. Military or otherwise. The wood handles are gone. (It was wrapped in a dishtowel and covered in electrical tape) The guard is a little bent and "wobbly". But there's no deep gouges or grind marks on the edge. It does have some pitting. It looks like this. ( minus the wood)

Any I thought it was a pretty cool discovery. I think I might do a little work on her and see if I can make her functional again.

 

[wabash]

neat. get a nice wood handle on it and let us see a pic of it.

 

[VN Vet]

Some gentle TLC, steel wool, oil, some nice wood, new rivits (or whatever holds the grips on) then a good sharpening and you're ready for fun camping. It is likely that the grips is what holds the guard tite to the tang.

 

[HandK]

DO not change the wood !! if you do that you will destroy any value it has, My quess it is kinda rare so I would treat it with TLC and not change a thing!!! dont sharpen it shine it or any of that, its value is in the way it is!! and my guess its worth a couple hundered bucks anyway.

 

[ISP 5353]

Nice find. I would fix it up and use it.

 

[Indecision]

DO not change the wood !! if you do that you will destroy any value it has, My quess it is kinda rare so I would treat it with TLC and not change a thing!!! dont sharpen it shine it or any of that, its value is in the way it is!! and my guess its worth a couple hundered bucks anyway.

Calm down killer, as stated in the OP. The wood handles are gone. The supplied picture is an example.

 

[HandK]

Calm down killer, as stated in the OP. The wood handles are gone. The supplied picture is an example.

Yep !! missed that in the first read, with out the wood it lowers the collector value quite a bit.

 

[Fergy35]

OK, so that's cool. I have never seen one, that I know of, but I like it. Good find.

Good luck with the restoration. Take some before and after pictures and let us see how it turns out.