A good friend of mine, someone I served with in the Army inherited a knife. The information he has is very scant. Basicly his Grandparents lived in southern California.....

Not much to go on

I have some ideas but I do not want to taint the opinions. I also have not handled the knife so I do not know much about it

---

 Attachment: 52.29 KB



 Attachment: 129.56 KB
[ Download ]

 Attachment: 110.88 KB
[ Download ]

 Attachment: 114.18 KB
[ Download ]

Interesting knife. The hand holding a stylized dagger and the pike writing style of the inscription give it a link to tattoo art. I'd guess it was made by someone in the navy during WWII. The quality of construction seems like the maker may have had access to a lathe.

I'm thinking it may be a Mexican-made knife for tourists, sold at souvenier shops. They made gazillions of these in various styles. The reason I say is because of the decoration on the sheathe and the way the engraving is done. I have a large, curve-bladed dagger with markings very similar. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's what it is............McM

Looks Mexican (or possibly other ex-Spanish colonial). Southern California and "Viva la Union" is very Cesar Chavez and suggests 1960s or '70s.

How close are the dimensions to an F-S knife?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairbairn%E2%80%93Sykes_fighting_knife

Probably not one of the many off-shoots of the actual wartime designs, but it definitely looks to be inspired by one of them. Note the round handle, diamond cross-section, and pronounced ricasso which many FS knives or flavors thereof have.

I don't think it's inspired by the FS, as those same features can be seen on 19th century Philippine and Mexican daggers (and I guess Spanish daggers too, but I don't know about them).

For example:

[ Linked Image ]
http://www.forensicfashion.com/1898KatipunanSandatahanDagger.html

[ Linked Image ]
http://www.ashokaarts.com/shop/rare-katipunan...ver-mounts (triangular rather than diamond section, which is unusual)

[ Linked Image ]
http://atkinson-swords.com/collection-by-regi...dagge.html

[ Linked Image ]
http://atkinson-swords.com/collection-by-regi...ature.html (1st half 20th century?)

The more recent descendants of these daggers:

[ Linked Image ]
http://www.oriental-arms.com/item.php?id=7063

[ Linked Image ]
http://www.oriental-arms.com/item.php?id=3950