Scott; :swissthats not a quote from me, but from that WAF user.
The question is: Has anyone ever considered how to tell if the diamond has been replaced, either pre or post war? Is that even possible at all?
Until now in this thread, i have more or less stuck to defending the use of opaque red enamel. What else could i say about knives? i know they hurt when someone stabs you with one, but thats about it. Apart from the common sense questions, i am not really the person to talk too about HJ knives.
One way i can think of, to be more-or-less-ish sure if the diamond is genuine to the knife, would be to put it under the microscope, and to concentrate on the minute space between the grips and diamond, at the very least it would need to be choka-bloc full of debris, fat, dirt grime etc..... if it was not, if you could see straight down between the slits/gaps onto the base of the grip, then i would be worried. That would fall under the "patina" category, and common sense dictates that the knife was held by sweaty hands on that exact spot, and could obviously never be cleaned, or ridden of the grime, which would have built up over time, and today, 80 years later would surely be present.
This is the thin slit i am referring to, that runs around the diamond.
Now this is where i personally would start, just because of common sense really. The next "thing" i would do, would be to ignore the strap, and ignore the scabbard altogether. Exclude them completely from any analysis. These are party that could have been replaced, either pre or post war. The scabbard, well that goes without saying, it really has nothing to do with the knife, and there cant really be any way to be sure at all if the scabbard always belonged to the knife.
On to the quote that you re-quoted, from WAF.
Pointless. A maker of the blade did not make the diamond. These were made by completely different companies, and then ordered by either the maker of the blade, or the hilfsfabrik that put the knife together. Makers would have been ordering diamonds as they needed, and depending what was around at that time, in their area.
For example, I was making blades, but not many, say i had an order for a few thousand a year. You were also making blades but had orders all the time. I ordered a few thousand diamonds in 1938 to tide me over, but never used them all. You needed to order diamonds all the time, and so you took, or were supplied with, whatever was available. I, on the other hand, always had a box of translucent diamonds to use, because i had enough in stock. So in 1941, you were using opaque diamonds because that is all you could get in your area, and i was using translucent to the very end. This is the reality of it Scott. This is why makers in Germany, Austria, the Sudetenland and Lord knows where, were never ALL using the same stuff, at the same time. It would have depended on what the maker had, what he could get, what he was supplied with, and dont forget the Hilfsfabriken, if this maker was sub-contracting out work to a few different places, there would be a few different "versions" of the same product, just assembled differently using different stuff, according to period and area.
It would help i guess, and give you a basic overview if you got some "list" together, but the clue here would be to incorporate forensics into it somehow. Not forensics of the actual badge surface as such, as that could have been replaced, but rather forensics with the focus being on connecting diamond with grip, for a long time. (Silver-wash present on parts of the diamond that could theoretically not be touched after assembly, and the grime/patina deep own in the slits.
The question is: Has anyone ever considered how to tell if the diamond has been replaced, either pre or post war? Is that even possible at all?
Until now in this thread, i have more or less stuck to defending the use of opaque red enamel. What else could i say about knives? i know they hurt when someone stabs you with one, but thats about it. Apart from the common sense questions, i am not really the person to talk too about HJ knives.
One way i can think of, to be more-or-less-ish sure if the diamond is genuine to the knife, would be to put it under the microscope, and to concentrate on the minute space between the grips and diamond, at the very least it would need to be choka-bloc full of debris, fat, dirt grime etc..... if it was not, if you could see straight down between the slits/gaps onto the base of the grip, then i would be worried. That would fall under the "patina" category, and common sense dictates that the knife was held by sweaty hands on that exact spot, and could obviously never be cleaned, or ridden of the grime, which would have built up over time, and today, 80 years later would surely be present.
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This is the thin slit i am referring to, that runs around the diamond.
Now this is where i personally would start, just because of common sense really. The next "thing" i would do, would be to ignore the strap, and ignore the scabbard altogether. Exclude them completely from any analysis. These are party that could have been replaced, either pre or post war. The scabbard, well that goes without saying, it really has nothing to do with the knife, and there cant really be any way to be sure at all if the scabbard always belonged to the knife.
On to the quote that you re-quoted, from WAF.
Pointless. A maker of the blade did not make the diamond. These were made by completely different companies, and then ordered by either the maker of the blade, or the hilfsfabrik that put the knife together. Makers would have been ordering diamonds as they needed, and depending what was around at that time, in their area.
For example, I was making blades, but not many, say i had an order for a few thousand a year. You were also making blades but had orders all the time. I ordered a few thousand diamonds in 1938 to tide me over, but never used them all. You needed to order diamonds all the time, and so you took, or were supplied with, whatever was available. I, on the other hand, always had a box of translucent diamonds to use, because i had enough in stock. So in 1941, you were using opaque diamonds because that is all you could get in your area, and i was using translucent to the very end. This is the reality of it Scott. This is why makers in Germany, Austria, the Sudetenland and Lord knows where, were never ALL using the same stuff, at the same time. It would have depended on what the maker had, what he could get, what he was supplied with, and dont forget the Hilfsfabriken, if this maker was sub-contracting out work to a few different places, there would be a few different "versions" of the same product, just assembled differently using different stuff, according to period and area.
It would help i guess, and give you a basic overview if you got some "list" together, but the clue here would be to incorporate forensics into it somehow. Not forensics of the actual badge surface as such, as that could have been replaced, but rather forensics with the focus being on connecting diamond with grip, for a long time. (Silver-wash present on parts of the diamond that could theoretically not be touched after assembly, and the grime/patina deep own in the slits.
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