A vintage Sheffield knife - flea market find I hope to “restore”

[Rudyard]

I have one here the handle is some off white material.

That might be Zilo A simulation of ivory. to be bone its got to be old .Only top quality would be Ivory 'Best' .
Rudyard

 

[LRB]

Hey all, was at my local flea market the other day and got this old knife for next to nothing. It was really brown with age and the handle was a joke, but I knew from what I could see of the stamp that it was old and likely English. It is all made from one piece of steel, with a forged in bolster and tapered tang.

It looks like the original handle is long gone, and in the meantime someone had taken a 5” file handle, slit it nearly in half, shoved the blade in, put a wire ring around the top to retain it, then wrapped it in some kind of gauze tape.

I removed the tape and the handle, let the blade sit in vinegar for a day and then hit it lightly with the wire wheel. The stamp is: “V R / Warranted Cast Steel / Sheffield”. No makers name and no England, so I’m assuming this is possibly as old as the 1870-1880s. The tang looks partially hand forged, with evidence of five pin holes.

I was thinking about making some fancy maple handles for this, but I did a scratch test on the blade with a pocket knife blade and it seems pretty soft. Is that normal for knives of this era? Any idea as to who made knives marked this way, or when approximately it was made?

I ended up cutting through the file handle that was being used as the makeshift handle. It looks like pine, but does feel slightly harder than modern pine. Since I’m not sure how good the steel actually is (it’s quite dull now), I was thinking about adding the two halves of the file handle, pinning it properly, and slightly reprofilling the blade tip to get a point back. I really like the size and balance of this knife and I think using this older wood handle in the “proper” way will yield some interesting results. I know I will likely need to glue a dowel into the channel cut into each side of the new scales and sand it flush but that’s not that big of a deal.

Any thoughts you can offer are much appreciated. See the pics.

That V crown R, is Victoria Rex, Queen of England, if that helps.

 

[Rudyard]

That V crown R, is Victoria Rex, Queen of England, if that helps.

No its not, VR is' Victoria Regina 'not 'Rex' but good of you to be helpful '
Rudyard

 

[LRB]

No its not, VR is' Victoria Regina 'not 'Rex' but good of you to be helpful '
Rudyard

Correct. I was in a hurry. Thanks.