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8 comments

Date Votes
  • Bill DeShivs
    Without looking at the pictures, I can tell you that it's a letter opener. They are being sold as "salesmen's samples." Salesmen would have carried full sized cutlery.
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  • atrisha
    Bill the knife is not a letter opener, were did you get your info. All I want is a little more factual information rather then opinon. No offense.
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  • Bill DeShivs
    Well, my opinions are pretty well-respected in the cutlery world-but my information comes also from the proprietor of Hubertus knives (Henning Ritter,) who is recognized as one of the foremost scholars on German cutlery. There was a thread about these on Bernard Levine's forum on www.bladeforums.com
    The cute little dagger is a post war letter opener.
    Edit: These knives are simply miniature versions of the larger knives.
    Consensus is that they were not used as salesmen's samples. Why would they be? The full sized daggers were not difficult to carry and demonstrate. Who would these salesmen showed them to? The various government factions already knew what they were buying. Since they were not used for this purpose, they could have been used as curios or.....letter openers-not much else. I have knife catalogs from the 1950s to the 1970s offering them for sale.
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  • atrisha
    Why on several sites are they selling for more then $400 dallors what I am tring to find out is how rare the knifes that are made during the war are. I am sure they were also made after the war. You seem set on that. http://germanswordbuyer.com/blog/third-reich-miniature-daggers-swords/
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  • pogybate
    Ask that German sword buyer that you have the link for. He gives appraisals.
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  • TANK78Z
    I also have one of these "sample / letter openers"
    Mine Is a ww2 vet bring back from my late father ,
    Being he picked it up during the war , post war does not fit
    For a description. Whatever the consensus is as to what they really were
    , they were made either prewar or during it.
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  • TANK78Z
    quote:Originally posted by TANK78Z
    I also have one of these "sample / letter openers"
    Mine Is a ww2 vet bring back from my late father Inlaw,
    Being he picked it up during the war , post war does not fit
    For a description. Whatever the consensus is as to what they really were
    , they were made either prewar or during it.
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  • givette
    quote:Originally posted by TANK78Z
    I also have one of these "sample / letter openers"
    Mine Is a ww2 vet bring back from my late father ,
    Being he picked it up during the war , post war does not fit
    For a description. Whatever the consensus is as to what they really were
    , they were made either prewar or during it.

    Remember, unless your father was a PW internee, or had the Purple Heart, most (greater than 85pct) of the GI's lingered in the ETO till several months past V-J day.

    So, although your story has merit (There's no reason for me to doubt that your Dad disembarked the troopship back here in the States with it in his posession), there's enough of a timeline overlap for some 'post WWII' stuff to have been up 'n running for sale to GI's prior to your Dad's return.

    There's enough reasonable doubt to allow me to not summarily dismiss the 'post WWII' aspect of this conversation. Best, and good luck!

    Joe
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