Fake D Guard Bowie stamp?

[DougCooper]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2211629373&category=136

Is the arsenal stamp with date bogus here?

[M.Latham]

Re: Fake D Guard Bowie stamp?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...3&category=136

Is the arsenal stamp with date bogus here?

I would'nt touch that with a ten-foot pole. They are most certainly bogus. As is the shape of the whole thing (blade/handle)....

Mark Latham

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Fake D Guard Bowie stamp?

Hallo Kameraden!

While I do not have this knife in my hands, and others' mileage may vary... I have handled and examined over 200 "primitive" knives over the years:

1. The blade profile and thickness appears very similar to one sold by K-Mart (my father-in-law collected "store bought" knives and had two of these).
2. The extreme taper of the tang is the same as K-Mart bowie, however the K-Mart example has a birds-head shape which appears cut or ground off here.
3. The rust pitting reminds me of the type produced when steel is soaked in a bucket of salt-water for a period of time. A similar "look" can be achieved by faster by boiling for about 5-10 minutes in a 50%/50% mix of water and bleach.
4. The scales (handle) appears as new modern wood with randonly applied scratches reminiscent of those made gouging with coarse grit sandpaper at different angles. The scatches do not reflect the randomness of width, depth, size, and nature of accumulated dings, dents, gouges, and scrapes.
5. The "Selma Arsenal" stamp appears as uneven letters. The font style of the letters reminds me of modern steel stamping sets (I have a dated 1837 set) I am not aware of such an original marking, and not aware that Selma Arsenal was making knives in 1863-but I may be wrong on that point. In general, when I think of Confederate D-Guard Bowies, I think of early war pieces made by local blacksmiths.

IMHO, this is $49.00 (?) "K-Mart" bowie reworked into a poor example of CS knife. Granted the ad says "This item is being listen as modern, since I don't know the history of the knife." but I would think that bidders either think it possibly an original CS, or do not know that they could have a modern knifesmith/blacksmith forge and make a more historically accurate one for about the same money.

Just my opinion...

Curt-Heinrich Schmidt

[DougCooper]

Re: Fake D Guard Bowie stamp?

Curt that was an outstanding analysis. You are now "High Private" in the Paul Revere Society, a loosely organized virtual group of folks dedicated to exposing fraud and ingnorance on E-Bay :D

[John Peterson]

Re: Fake D Guard Bowie stamp?

If you look at the close-up of the "Selma Arsenal" stamping, you can see that it was done over the age-pitting on the blade. I also agree with Herr Schmidt that the "font" looks too modern.