Theater knife

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GunnyUSMC

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I stopped in at the pawn shop on my way home yesterday and spotted an ugly old knife in the case. It had the high price tag of $9.95 on it.
I asked when did they put it out for sale and was told earlier that day.
I asked to have a look at it. There was no makers mark on the blade, I didn’t care about the blade. The handle is what caught my interest.
The handle was made from plexiglass, aluminum and brass.
I was holding a WWII Theater knife with a silly, low price tag on it.
So guess what I did?
I offered $5 and was told sure.
I wish it had a sheath.
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That handle is very unique. I would never have guessed it was used by someone in WW2. Will you give us some tips or a website where we could learn how to identify these knives? I wouldn't mind picking one up if I knew what it was when I ran across it, esp. for $5!
 
That has the lines of a Buck.
Wouldn't you love to know its' story?
That handle could have been a windshield from a Zero.
If it could only talk, we would be sitting on the back patio drinking coffee and booze.
That handle is very unique. I would never have guessed it was used by someone in WW2. Will you give us some tips or a website where we could learn how to identify these knives? I wouldn't mind picking one up if I knew what it was when I ran across it, esp. for $5!
Here’s some info.
https://www.bladesmithsforum.com/index.php?/topic/37306-introduction-to-theatre-of-war-knives/
I bet you would have given them their $10 if they hadn't budged. Great find.
Or at least $10 out the door without tax. ;)
 
I almost can't NOT buy any reasonably priced theater knife as long as I can imply a U.S. connection in either the base knife or an American (likely) re-worked foreign blade.
I don't think I've ever seen internal colors so cleverly highlighted before. Sad to not have any idea as to the maker or it's last G.I. owner.

Todd.
 
Just proves that you have to know what you're looking at. I'd have never given that knife a 2nd look. Sounds like you did good.
 
Just proves that you have to know what you're looking at. I'd have never given that knife a 2nd look. Sounds like you did good.
I know the owner of the shop. They most likely bought it with some other knives that they had just put out and more then likely had little to nothing in the knife.
It’s not my fault that they didn’t know what they had and you can bet that I’ll never tell them.:) I make it a habit not to educate the pawn broker.
 
I'm thinking or more correctly guessing Navy with access to a shop.

My local pawn guy calls me when he gets in a bunch of knives. and sends me the gun guys as he does not have or want an FFL.
You think he would learn not to take in Jaguar, Pakistani, and fantasy knives but they sell to the great unwashed.
So far nothing special has shown up, but when it does I'm first in line.!
 
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Those holes look 'coned out' like they were drilled with a knife point, ...to me at least.
Pretty cool.
Reminds me of plexiglass 'sweetheart grips' on GI 1911s.
Agreed. Coned out made me initially think of a drill bit going partway through, but the unusual striations indicate a more rough and more primitive method and I believe you are probably right that they were drilled out with a knife. Possibly even the blade wearing that handle. I like the look a lot though, and would not mind having something similar on a blade. I have a couple junk mini Bowie’s I bought as a kid that would be good blades to try it on. I even like the aluminum spacers between the layers of plexiglass. The cheaskate in me wonders if a beverage can would produce a similar finished look without looking cheap.
 
That blade is beat, Gunny, are you going to polish it up and make it pretty or are you just going to leave it as is?
I’m going to leave it like it is. It appears that it’s been like this for some time. There was a little rust at the base of the blade and l cleaned it with some oil. The blade is also kind of sharp.
Oh. The colors inside the handle appears to be paint.
Did you notice that between each section of plexiglass is a thin sheet of brass?
 
When you said "Theater Knife" I was thinking one where the blade retracts into the handle when an actor is "stabbed"........
That's what I was thinking also as the tittle used the common spelling Theater, rather than with the inverted "re" as in Theatre of War
 
"Theater knives" were hand crafted or modified by servicemen around the world during WWII using whatever materials and tools they had at hand - wherever they were. The following is my recollection about my Dad who went in the Army in very early 1942 - then made a career out of it.... I'm sure our country had many, many like him from modest circumstances he hit the ground running....

As a kid I accompanied my Dad to our local post hobby shop on many occasions when he was assigned to Redstone Arsenal in the sixties. Like most larger posts the Army had a good sized hobby shop at Redstone (a big area for automotive stuff, and another generous one for woodworking/craft work). That handle looks like something he would have been able to make (always with available materials....). Back before I was born, during WW twice there were many, many service members that came into the service with great woodworking, metal working, and similar skills - all using whatever materials were available... In my Dad's case he'd been a work crew supervisor in the late thirties working for Pan Am building new airstrips in both South America and Africa (back when a work crew might have had one or two pieces of heavy equipment - and a crew of native laborers with lots of hand tools..). When the war got started and he joined up (volunteered for the draft is how it was done...) he was exactly what the Engineers were looking for.. That was a time when mechanics and other maintenance types routinely re-built or refurbished broken parts for most types of gear - if at all possible, since "spare parts" were a great luxury if you were in the back of beyond somewhere and had a job to do...

Looking back on it all these years later (and long after he'd passed away in the early nineties...) I realized that not only was he very skilled with his hands (he could make a piece of furniture from scratch - with no nails or screws until the finishing hardware, lay a line of brick perfectly straight, tune a car engine by ear... but back then he was actually the commander of many post facilities (from a private to a lieutenant colonel over a 28 year career)... Funny thing, though, on weekends he dressed like a common grease monkey and you'd have never known his rank - unless you needed to know... Not bad for a depression era kid who came out of dirt poor beginnings in north Alabama.

I'll miss him until I'm no longer around....
 
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