------------------------------------------------------------ An Old Knife / Art?, (circumlunar), 10/25/2018 ------------------------------------------------------------ I wanted to write about an old knife, but I didn't have a phlog for that, so I'm putting this here on C.S., where I intend to write about art (among other things.) Knife making is a fine art; voila my justification. Ever since I was a little boy, I've loved knives and guns. Judge me if you need to, I'm just stating a fact. It was never about killing people, war, or anything like that; I'm not a violent fellow, I just have an oddly soft place in my heart for the things themselves. For whatever reason, I find them fascinating and beautiful. Before my grandfather died, he asked me to take possession of his collection of knives, as I was the only person that apparently ever expressed any interest in them. His wish was that I would keep them myself, but give away any that other family members showed interest in. I've done that as well as I could, and have given most of the knives away to his great grandkids, and a few to my brothers. (Notice: knife terms coming, which I garnered from a website by Jay Fisher[1]. I didn't know most of them until today, in spite of my interest in knives.) One of the knives that I have left, which was of no interest to anyone but which I find beautiful, is an old fixed blade knife with a stacked leather handle. It is about 9 1/4" overall , with a very thick blade of about 5 1/16". It has what I think is a considerable swage, a brass quillon, and an aluminum rear bolster. At the top and bottom of the stack of leather is a red-yellow-red pattern of layers. For now, I keep this knife on a small table next to my desk. Unlike his other knives, he kept this one in a hand-made leather sheath with his initials designed into the front. There is a black-and-white striped feather stuffed in with the knife. From time to time I take the knife out and sharpen it. I don't use the knife, really, but I am trying to develop a nice edge on it, which takes time because I don't have a good stone or good skills. But I enjoy the practice anyway. Today, I got a bee in my bonnet, and I decided to attempt to figure out something about the knife's origins. The blade is marked very clearly on one side with "807", but the markings on the other side were very faint from someone using a grinder to polish the steel (probably grandpa.) All I could make out was: MI(D/B/R)RO SO GERM There were clearly other letters, but those were all that were legible. It was also unclear how many other letters there might be. I guessed that it was made in Germany, but the other letters meant nothing to me. I used image search (both on DDG and Google) as my main tool to get some information. I started by browsing through fixed blade knives with stacked leather handles, hoping to catch a manufacturers name that had some of the MI?RO lettering in it. I had no luck. Next I trying focusing on the rear bolster, after noticing that they tended to be styled differently by different makers. I didn't find any that really matched what I was looking for. Since features of the knife weren't helping, I decided to add in a guess at the country of origin. I searched for stacked leather handles on knives made in Germany, and found some pictures that were starting to look really close. They were knives made by Carl Schlieper. The quillon and rear bolster were almost dead on. His knives came from Solingen Germany, which was a possible match with my markings. Carl Schlieper didn't match at all, of course, so the search continued. I started to look into Soligen Germany, and found that it was a hot spot for knife making (heck, it's the "City of Blades" and home to many famous makers.) I figured I had quite possibly found the rest of the letters that were missing after "SO," and I narrowed my search to Soligen Germany. This didn't prove as helpful as I had hoped, but I filed the info away as a possible clue anyway. The next thing I noticed while looking at Carl's knives was that the color-stripe pattern on the various stacked leather handles was different from maker to maker, but generally consistent with each maker. I broadened my search to all vintage stacked leather handled knives and set to work trying to find one that had the red-yellow-red pattern. yellow-red-yellow seemed easy to find, and there were other patterns. Finally, I found one with the red-yellow-red, and it looked quite similar to the knife I held in my hand. Clicking the link brought me to a page where the knife had been sold in a set. There were close ups, and the knife was marked with an "805" on one side, and on the other: MIBRO SOLINGEN GERMANY With the larger pictures, I could see that it was the exact same knife: the same swage, same thick steel, choil, brass quillon, color pattern in the handle, and same rear bolster. The mystery is mostly solved. After more searching, and more finding, I did see more knives that were the same, and a few more that were different but from the same maker. I couldn't find much (any?) reliable info on the maker. The knife could be pre-wwii (per a forum post, iirc), but that isn't entirely certain either. In any case, my curiosity was satiated for today. I feel entirely confident that I at least know what the markings were originally, and that I could maybe find more info one day if I got the urge. [1] https://jayfisher.com/Knife_Anatomy_Parts_Names_Definitions.htm