A while ago i bought this what i think is a nice little knife, and although it looks quite a bit like the well known Woodcraft model it wasn't made by Marble's USA.
Now in 1916 Webster Marble received a patent on his Woodcraft knife which lasted around 20 years, but because the model became widely populair other manufacturers had similar models made outside the US to get around the patent, often in Solingen Germany.
The blade on my knife has no markings and the pommel doesn't have the mushroom shape like many Woodcraft models.
Based on this and the typical handle construction with 2 stag panels held together by brass rivets my best guess is that it's a Solingen made Woodcraft copy from the 1920's or 1930's or who knows ?
Later seems unlikely, first because of the war and after that various US manufacturers could make as many Woodcraft type knives in the US as the market could bear since the patent had already ran out.
The specimen i have is a well made knife with very hard steel (noticeably harder than my F.Dick basterd file no.1), and i'm currently in the process of making it functional again.
It definitely has had a hard life with many sharpening attempts, and somewhere in time a previous owner even used the pommel as a hammer, which dented it quite badly and also got it stuck on the threaded tang.
This is how i received the knife:
On YouTube i found this clip by German collector Jake vd Ibach where he shows a Fahrtenmesser made by Solingen manufacturer Carl Friedrich Ern, and based on the type and sequence, type and color of the spacers as well as the shape of the pommel on his knife i'm starting to think that my knife was also made by CF Ern.
What do you guys think ?
