Clear Handle Colonial MK1

[jasonm]

Found this today I a box of other things I picked up. It appears to be a Colonial MK1 prototype with a clear handle. You can still see the bubbles in the plastic & the tang. The lighting isn't that great in the pics. Any additional info on this knife is appreciated.

[jasonm]

.

[jasonm]

last one the pics make handle look greener than what it actually is.

[Charlie Flick]

Jason:

 

Neat blade, and very scarce. I have one as well. The few I have seen seem to have a khaki coloration to the handles although I understand that originally they were clear. I have never seen a greenish colored one before. Your sheath is somewhat different from mine as well. The blades had a weird finish that was sort of a pickled finish.

 

 

 

I don't have my research materials handy right now at this location, but as I recall Frank Trzaska wrote about these knives some years ago, probably in a Knife World article.

 

Regards,

Charlie

 

 

[jasonm]

Thanks Charlie. The handle isnt as green as it appears in the pics. I think it's the lighting in my garage. I'll post some in natural daylight in a day or so.

[jasonm]

Here are some more pics in natural light. The green is toned down quite a bit. I think its the natural color the clear handle is turning over time. I'm looking for more info but it has been quite scarce to find.

[jasonm]

The blade appears to have been polished at some point in areas, sharpened & a few knicks in blade.

[jasonm]

Finally got full sun & these are better pics..

[John762]

I've never heard of these, they are really cool though!

[jasonm]

This is all I've been able to find:

One of rarest knives from World War II is the clear-handled prototype of the Colonial Mark I knife. Colonial's proposed knife had a plastic handle, so they made the clear-handled prototypes to show the Navy Department how the handle and blade were joined, and to demonstrate the robustness of the design. The Navy accepted the design, and the "regular" Colonial Mark I's were manufactured with black plastic handles.

 

Over the decades the prototypes' clear plastic handles have turned to an opaque almond color. As of today, only nine examples of these knives have been documented (a possible tenth is being tracked down).

 

This is a portion of a post from a 2011 web forum found online via a Google search.

[sactroop]

Not many clear handles were made. IMHO, they were for demonstration purposes and not intended to be issued.

The handles were made of "tenite" a brand name from the Eastman Chemical Co., the same material was used to make Beckwith sheaths and too many other things to try and name. It's a nitrocellulose based thermoplastic. Eastman Chemical still makes it today.

Examples of the clear handle MK1's I've seen have been the more tanish brown like the knife that Charlie posted earlier. They get so opaque that you often can't see into them. I'm wondering if your knife may have been exposed to less U.V. light than these other examples. (?)

You might try looking thru the archives of Frank Trzaska's knife knotes on his usmilitaryknives.com site. You can use the search function on the articles to locate information.

 

Thanks for taking the time to post these pictures, and congratulations on a nice addition to your collection.