Ever seen one of these Valley Forge lockbacks?

[58chevy348]

I got this in recently with a large lot of rough knives / parts. I really like this one. It is an early Valley Forge Cutlery lockback knife measuring 5 1/4 inches long closed. Unfortunately, you can see the chipping to the scales at lower pin, and the backspring is broken. Does anyone know an estimate of value for a knife like this if repaired? Trying to assess if it would be worthy of paying to spend the money for repairs.

[Mountain Man Knives]

Remington and Case made a similar pattern and those both bring a good dollar or two ~ if the spring is still good and you are only worried about the scales I would just leave it alone because rescaling it will drop its value and interest to a lot a collectors from what it is already worth ~ my opinion ~ Nice Knife ~ Keep it original and authentic ~

[58chevy348]

Unfortunately spring is broken. Would love to get it repaired, but hate to put more into it than its worth. I have several early knives in my collection I consider "relics." Scarce knives that need repair. I might just put this one in that part of my collection.

[djknife13]

It probably wouldn't pay if you plan on having it rebuilt to sell, but one of my favorite knives which was one of my dream knives came with a broken back spring. The end piece of the spring that sits under the lock was broken so it wouldn't lock open. I had a repair guy make and install a new spring for under a hundred dollars. I don't have any idea what the AAPK repair guys charge for something like that. Yours needs either a patch epoxied in or new scales. I have several knives that have patches and you would have to know where they were to notice them without a loupe. Also it looks like your pin may been changed to a metal that doesn't match the bolster but that isn't much of anything for a repair guy to fix. If it were mine I would sure try to find someone to bring it back. It's a beautiful and pretty rare knife. I have little interest in keeping an old worn knife authentic if I can have it made usable and still have the scales mostly intact. Some collectors cringe at the thought of doing anything to an old rare knife. I like to keep them as original as I can but if something can be fixed so it is a usable knife again, I lean toward the repair even if the cost doesn't add up. I've spent hours cleaning and repairing old knives that repaired aren't worth a plug nickle. I hope one of the AAPK repair guys answers your question. ____Dave