An,"oddball"for a buck...........

[knife7knut]

Went,"vintage edged tool accumulation" today at some of my favorite haunts and found nothing. On the way home I decided to follow a gravel road that I have never been down just to see where it came out.Came to the main road and turned right as traffic from the opposite direction was very heavy. Wound up at a shop run by a lady who must be at least 90 years old but hardly acts it and she is pretty savvy about values.
We talked for awhile as I looked around as I hadn't been in there in over a year. Found a little manicure set for a dollar and asked if she had any knives around. She mentioned she had a few and went to look in the back of the shop. She could only find one and she said it was in pretty sad shape but if I wanted it I could have it for a buck as well.
The knife was a scout/utility pattern with jigged black composition handles that were mostly missing.The blades showed a heavy coating of bright red rust and took some working to free them. The tang stamp was pretty much unreadable even after I rubbed it with a lead pencil and it looked like someone had converted the spear point blade to a clip. I didn't have a loupe with me and she didn't have one either but I decided to bring it home anyway.
When I did some more cleaning on the stamp with a piece of 320 grit sandpaper I found a surprise: The original stamp was an arched Colonial stamp and it had been over-stamped with a Shapleigh Hardware stamp!
Another puzzling thing is there appears to be a tiny square hole in both sides of the pivot pin for the master and screwdriver blade.Not sure of it's purpose;maybe just a defect in the pin.
Anyway I am in the process of cleaning it up and deciding what to use for new handles.It will never be a valuable knife;just an unusual one.

[glennbad]

Interesting double punch. Also, I agree that those marks were probably to try to set the pins in place to snug up any blade play.

Cool!

[Mumbleypeg]

Ray, that is an oddball indeed. But the price is right - I’d have given a buck for it too! Will be interesting to see what you do to it.

Ken

[Reverand]

The square holes make me think that someone used a hammer and nail to tighten the pin.
That might not be right, but it reminded me of an impression made by the tip of a steel nail.