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WWII Airborne Switchblades


Allan H.
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uscollector

M.H. Cole was a fixture at the Alabama Gun Collectors shows in Birmingham for many years, occupying a table near the entrance as people came in. My sons bought copies of his Book 3 and Book 4 from him and he was happy to personalize and sign them. This was in the late 1980s and mid 1990s.

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  • 1 month later...

Help, I'm trying to understand?  I've been researching and studying these knives and the many related topics. I've read and re-read line by line.

 

In this topic "WWII Airborne Switchblades" it is mentioned several times that not one black painted metal handled knife has been found in the hands of a veteran. But back in 2011 (the bold sentence below) mentions that "ONE" was encountered?

 

What I'm trying to understand is, has it been determined that metal handle knives were issued? Maybe I'm reading it wrong, I've read many many topics, and there all running together.

 

Topic was:

M-2 Paratrooper

By Ronald, March 30, 2011 in EDGED WEAPONS

 

On 03/30/2011 at 9:07 PM, Allan H. said:

"This thread is worthless without photos.....

 

No, I am not going to add them, but will add the description-

 

Very good and rare original Schrade "PRESTO" M2 Parachute knife. Works. This is the metal painted handle version. I assume it is original paint with slight loss from handling. Not an abused knife. Would rate this a 7.5-8 out of 10. I personally believe this version was the most commonly USED version during the war. A must for any US Airborne collection! Getting hard to find! Parachute cord lanyard is new made from original parachute line.

 

For a metal handled Presto, I would say this is a REALLY high realized price, but the paint is about as nice as I have ever seen. As for the seller's "personal belief" that this was the most commonly used version of the paratrooper switchblade in WWII, I would have to vehemently disagree. I have examined dozens of switchblades still in the hands of airborne veterans, and can honestly say that i have only ever encountered ONE of these veterans who had a metal handled knife. ALL of the others that i have ever encountered in the hands of veterans have been the stag handles.

 

No, it isn't a scientific survey, nor is the sampling conclusive, but I have discussed this with other collectors like Mark Bando and others whose experiences are rather similar to mine. Bando didn't have a metal handled knife on his "Trigger Time" website as he had never encountered a paratrooper veteran who had one.

 

Allan"

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DaBomb,

 

I had to really work to go back the approximately 100 pages of knife posts to find the thread that you were citing, but I believe that I can clarify. What I wrote in March of 2011, was that I had only ever encountered one of the black handled knives in the hands of a veteran. Some five years later, in this pinned thread, I posted this (page 1)-

"I want to be very clear here. I am NOT saying that the metal handled Presto knives were not issued to paratroopers in World War II. What I am saying is that since specializing in WWII airborne from around 1979 to present, I have yet to encounter one of these metal handled Presto knives that I could confirm was WWII issued. In the interest of full disclosure, a number of years ago, I did run into a FSSF veteran who told me that he had a Presto knife and that it was painted black. I assumed that this was the metal handled Presto. Once the veteran was able to produce the knife, it turned out that it was a bone handled Schrade where the metal bolsters and blade had been coated with black paint. The veteran then said that they darkened the metal so that they didn't get a shine off the blade. I should also mention that most of the Forcemen that I talked to said that the FSSF never had switchblades issued!

 

So, I would encourage you to use the advice that I have given throughout this pinned thread- I HAVE YET TO ENCOUNTER A METAL HANDLED PRESTO KNIFE THAT I CAN DOCUMENT AS HAVING BEEN ISSUED TO A PARATROOPER IN WORLD WAR II. I have recently been told by a fellow collector that he purchased a grouping from a dealer that DID have a metal handled Presto in the grouping. While I have no reason to doubt the seller or the collector, I personally do not believe that this is the "smoking gun" that says that they were issued to paratroopers in World War II.

 

I hope that this answer provides you with the answers that you seek.

 

Allan

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  • 2 months later...
13 hours ago, B-Man22 said:

Hi To All

I realize that this is old thread but as an avid collector of M2 knives and a new member of the forum , I’d like to join in the conversation if you guys don’t mind. I’ve been collecting  M2 knives for quite a number of years and to date the only information that Ive ever found with regard to the metal handed knife is, that it was produced for commercial sales . I have never met a veteran or paratrooper from WWII who was ever issued a metal handled  M2 Switchblade . I’d be happy to discuss this further if anyone is still interested in rebooting this conversation . 
Cheers

B-Ma22

Burt,

 

I'd like to add my words of welcome to the forum and want to thank you for sharing images out of your fine collection. I would also like to encourage you to add perspective to any of the threads that you read and feel that you have something to add. It is only by sharing knowledge and experience that we as a group get better at differentiating the wheat from the chaff.

 

I appreciate your experience with veterans and collectors. I began this pinned thread about four years ago and my experiences haven't changed. The number of WWII paratrooper vets that I have met have dwindled significantly over that span of time, but I still have yet to meet one of these veterans who was ever issued anything other than a stag handled knife.

 

Allan

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  • 6 months later...

Most M2s I've seen are not WWII issued knives at all. In the knife collecting world they are fairly common - having been made from the early 20th century into the post war years.

Dave

 

 

 

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Hi 

Here’s a few points to remember regarding this topic . All of these knives were originally sold in hardware stores and were purchased as private purchase trial knives back in the early 1940s  by the US Army . The knives were tested and a bail was added and then approved for issue , purchase orders were cut and contracts for production were given to Schrade Cut Company , and Presto . These were the bone handled models . 
The bone handled scales eventually became to costly, time consuming and frivolous,  so plastic worm grove handles replaced the bone scales. All of this information can be corroborated on Mark Bando‘s website Trigger Time 101st airborne

http://www.101airborneww2.com/equipment2.html

 

and in one of Frank Trazkas articles he wrote on the M-2 knife, in knife World Magazine. The metal handled m-2 knives are not of record as ever having been issued to military personnel or airborne troops but  were produced for commercial sales,  but that didn’t mean that some weren’t privately purchased and used on that basis . 
The only sure way to determine if one of these knives was actually an issued knife was  that they were issued in a pinkish wrapper with a khaki para cord lanyard . 
I hope that helps clarify some questions.

 

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  • 5 months later...
On 9/30/2021 at 10:05 PM, eaglerunner88 said:

What is everyone's take on this guy? And what's the market value on a working wartime M2 these days?

IMG_7298.jpg.80f87cd20ed11b07fbcae9bbd6a44f6f.jpgIMG_7300.jpg.b8ea5f303e9bbf30d23836d34a757b04.jpgIMG_7301.jpg.da5eba7102b69bc815f2984ce0277028.jpgIMG_7302.jpg.68dd8fb6bcb6210dfd50c87614e9c490.jpg

Here's my take- first, I would NOT call this a WWII M2 knife for the reasons stated in this very lengthy thread. This pattern of knife is the type that came out of the boxes of unissued knives that appeared back in the 1980's. They were wrapped with brown paper and had an OD parachute cord lanyard with them. I believe that this type was most likely issued during the Occupation to KW era and up until the orange handled MC-1 knives came out.

 

It may be me, but to me, the plastic handles appear to have shrunk significantly and the metal appears to be rather pitted. It could just be the shine from the photography, but it does not look like this knife is in very good shape. Realistically, I do not think that this is a $200 knife, but everyone seems to like to call them WWII and try to get top dollar out of them.

 

Hope this helps.

Allan

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On 4/14/2021 at 4:40 AM, B-Man22 said:

Hi 

Here’s a few points to remember regarding this topic . All of these knives were originally sold in hardware stores and were purchased as private purchase trial knives back in the early 1940s  by the US Army . The knives were tested and a bail was added and then approved for issue , purchase orders were cut and contracts for production were given to Schrade Cut Company , and Presto . These were the bone handled models . 
The bone handled scales eventually became to costly, time consuming and frivolous,  so plastic worm grove handles replaced the bone scales. All of this information can be corroborated on Mark Bando‘s website Trigger Time 101st airborne

http://www.101airborneww2.com/equipment2.html

 

and in one of Frank Trazkas articles he wrote on the M-2 knife, in knife World Magazine. The metal handled m-2 knives are not of record as ever having been issued to military personnel or airborne troops but  were produced for commercial sales,  but that didn’t mean that some weren’t privately purchased and used on that basis . 
The only sure way to determine if one of these knives was actually an issued knife was  that they were issued in a pinkish wrapper with a khaki para cord lanyard . 
I hope that helps clarify some questions.

 

So now the next question is what year were these knives being issued with plastic slabs instead of bone

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22 minutes ago, freestyle said:

So now the next question is what year were these knives being issued with plastic slabs instead of bone

The $64,000 question....

 

Allan

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Hey guys 

I just wanted to comment on your knife in this thread . With the utmost respect to Alan H, I have to disagree regarding the lineage of this M2 Switchblade knife. 
I have been collecting M2 knives for a significant number of years . The very first original knives were test knives purchased in the 1940 -1941 time frame. They were bone  handled without  a bail . After testing and analysis the bales were added to the knives for the purpose of attaching a lanyard . Late in the war as cost cutting measures , plastic worm grove handle slabs were used as pictured above . This knife was issued in a pink colored wrapper with a OD colored lanyard prior to D-Day .  Now for confirmation on this info you can check an article written buy a well known military knife collector Frank Traszka   in a “Knife World” publication  from about 5 years ago . I’m sure that I  have a copy of the article complete with photos . The value of this knife in its present condition is about $350.00 $400.

I hope that helps . I’ve attached a few of my collections photos  . 

3821A509-872B-47C4-A319-18363D5CC276.jpeg

39CF7479-92F8-41EE-8175-6C6FC9683240.jpeg

E2221B3E-7AA8-46ED-9C27-11B6DEAB6200.jpeg

F82F88E5-C8EF-4802-9DBB-C74BF6DF8043.jpeg

2F0A701A-310A-4E93-8D73-D416D892DC60.jpeg

2DCE2246-3259-4E0B-A159-88057BFBCA69.jpeg

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My apologies to FreeStyle as I had not seen his response prior to posting mine, but he nailed it in his post . Spot on with his info . 
regards 

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Do we have a consensus that the metal scaled knives were never government issued and/or that proper plastic scaled types always had a bail?

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From all that I’ve learned the metal handled knives were made for commercial sales and were never issued. However, I have nothing to confirm that. Regarding the plastic handled knives, to the best of my knowledge they all have bales . 

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B-Man22 and all,

 

When I started this thread many years ago, I started with the premise that M.H. Cole had listed a number of knives in his volume 3, but that is not what I was seeing in my interactions with WWII paratroopers. The fact of the matter is that now, some EIGHTY YEARS after the beginning of the Airborne, I have only ever run into paratrooper veterans with two types of switchblade knives. Both knives have a bone handle and are similar in shape. One was made by Schrade of Bridgeport, CN, and the other was made by Presto. Back at the beginning of the thread, I stated that I had interviewed hundreds of WWII paratroopers from a wide variety of units. Many didn't recall having a switchblade. Most of the early guys did recall them, and the ones that had examples in their possession, to a man, had bone handled knives. Some had bales, a few did not. I was able to purchase a few directly from veterans. All of the purchased blades were either Schrade or Presto maker marked and ALL had a bone handle. Where my collecting varies from the large variety of switchblade knives displayed above and previously, is that I can claim veteran provenance where most of the acquired blades on display came from shows and from other collectors.

 

Back when Frank Traska was first quoted in this thread, I tried to reach out to him through the forum and asked him to clarify his points. Where I had heartburn was the lack of documentation of some of his points from his articles. My most specific questions revolved about his "mid years" quote for plastic handles. Did he mean 1943- mid WWII, or did he mean 1945- mid 1940's? Additionally, my attempted conversations with Schrade were answered with a response that there was a lack of records regarding WWII production as they disappeared sometime after the company was purchased by Ulster and became Schrade Walden. I still question where the specific information came from to form the basis for the article.

 

I will gladly agree that plastic handles COULD have been manufactured before the end of WWII, but, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that they weren't finding their way into unit supply shelves in time to have been used in combat. I will also say that most of the conversation in the previous pages of this thread have revolved around the metal handled knives with the reinforced bolsters. You can see from the documentation from the Infantry Test Board that the bolsters were an issue, but I would say that the fix of having a peened over pin came later. I agree with most everyone here that I believe the metal handled knives to be commercially available after the war.

 

B-Man22 wants to disagree with my lineage of the M2 switchblade knife. I am wanting to remind everyone that the basic design of the Schrade switchblade knife goes back to before World War I with patents on the knife showing 1912. The knife was around and available commercially prior to being picked up as an issue item by the US military. Lots of knives and other items were in order to be able to meet the demand of millions of soldiers, sailors and marines being in uniform and needing equipment. My experience and the experience of others widely accepted as experts in the field, like Mark Bando, who got their information the same way I did, but chasing down airborne veterans, have provided remarkably consistent results- we are still waiting for a documented switchblade to come straight from the veteran, that includes a plastic or metal handle, or a blade with aa hook bill etc. The reality is that we can document two knives used by paratroopers in WWII. Schrade B'port, and Presto. I'll continue to wait for someone to set the collecting community on its ear with the smoking gun.

 

Allan

 

 

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This is what nearly fifty years of collecting where I have acquired examples from veterans and their families looks like.

 

Allan

IMG_2744[1].JPG

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At one time I had 53 paratrooper groups from the vet or their family’s and none of them had a switchblade though some of them did remember them.

 

Very interesting thread.

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Charlie Flick
On 7/22/2018 at 9:26 AM, Allan H. said:

Of the thousands of posts that I have made and hundreds of topics I've started across the forum, this is one of the ones that I have been most proud of starting. Although it evidently doesn't meet the criteria for being pinned, I thought that it might not be a bad idea to bring it back up to the front of the line as there could be others that might benefit from reading the information contained in here.  Allan

 

Allan H:

 

This has proven to be an excellent thread with continued vitality.  Accordingly, I have moved this thread into the Edged Weapons Reference section.  Thanks again for taking the time to post such an informative thread.

 

Charlie

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Gentlemen; 

First off let me say that if anyone feels offended by my last post or the fact that I may have had a difference of opinion regarding the lineage and history of the M2 Knife,  as presented in previous posts here, let me offer my sincere apologies . My post was solely meant to share some of the information that I’ve learned over the last 50 years of collecting these and other WWII artifacts . As someone who has also conducted some  research into the background of these knives and their history,  I can easily understand that differences of opinions exist between collectors,  much in the same way as historians disagree on a particular event in history . I’ve always believed that conflicting opinions are not necessarily a bad thing,  as the dispute is often the motivation to share information,  in a collaborative effort to determine the real  truth on the issue at hand . So with this in mind,  I would like to share some of my research that I’ve learned over the years. On a number of occasions during conversations with vets it was clear that there was a real distinction between some of the items the early airborne vets of the test platoons of 1940 were issued, compared to that of the later units comprised in the 1942 and later periods leading up to the Sicily and D-Day jumps . As stated previously the bone handled knives were originally purchased commercially without bails as test knives , after which a back end analysis was conducted and bails were added with the afterthought of adding a lanyard to secure the knife to the body of the paratrooper in order to prevent loss . Many of the early vets who I met had bone handled knives . Several of them without bails and some with. There is no disagreement on that point . 
However , vets who I talked to who entered the airborne post D-Day and near the end of the war after Operation Market Garden described having plastic handled M2 knives described as “pieces of shinola “ plastic switchblades that were cheaply made. Now …. With regard to the information that M2 knives were made solely by Schrade Cut Company, Schrade B’port and Presto . That is correct . No disagreement . However the Worm Groved plastic handled knives were also made by Presto . As evidence that these were in fact issued US Military M2 Knives I can tell you with absolute certainty that about 15 years ago I acquired two of them in their original pink wrappers with lanyards . In my collection I still have one of those original NOS worm grove handled plastic “Pieces of shinola” in its original pink wrapper with the accompanying lanyard . I acquired that knife from a vet who  had it stored in his military trunk for about 60 years . Did the guy BS me ? I don’t know why he would . There was no disagreement over weather or not it was an issued knife . If it was solely a commercially sold item , why then the accompanying lanyard and did the well known military pink wrapper that most M2s came in just happen to be included in a commercially sold knife ?? Lastly as mentioned above the worm grove knife is a Presto manufactured knife . The same exact maker of the military M2 knives . I’ve attached a photo below for confirmation . So here’s the bottom line. Let’s all agree to freely provide all of this anecdotal info to each other,  in an effort to find the answers to these questions . If we disagree at certain points along the way, let’s support each other’s viewpoints in an effort to find out the answers . That’s pretty much all I have . Looking forward to all of your responses . 
Regards 

FDD4E76E-6946-4F3E-BA78-7D660FAA0229.png

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Interestingly the word “Shinola” popped up in my post when I related the story about how the vet described the plastic M2 knife he was issued . I can assure you neither he, nor I used that word to describe the knife 🤣

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