I picked up this W31 Western a year or two ago and it has the wooden handle missing on one side.  Looking for input as to whether I should leave it alone or try to have it restored.  I know it's scarce knife and don't want to do the wrong thing.  Your thoughts.   leave it as is or try to have it restored if possible.  Thanks.  

Your best bet is to send it to me and ill lovingly treasure it as is forever, its on my to find list...🤣

 

On a serious, you could do a sympathetic restoration without removing anything that is there. A similar piece of wood could easily be slotted into place and glued in, id probably purposely use a lighter piece so a future owner could tell what was original and what was replaced. 

 

 

Thanks,  that would probably be the best solution as it would leave the rest as all original.  Appreciate the input.  I try to ID what kind of wood it is and search for a piece.  Luckily, I live in an Amish area and they are very good with wood.  I hope you find one for your collection.  I came across mine by accident.  It was in a box of knives a guy had in his trunk at a small knife show.  I almost left the sheath behind as I didn't think it was military and didn't match the knife.  Luckily, I paid the extra $5.00 bucks for the sheath, LOL

The sheath Is actually rarer than the knife and Is the original . Western called the wood cocobola , dont know If thats correct spelling . They used the same type wood on a limited number of theyre G46-6 Shark knives . Maybe you could find a beat up Shark with cocobola grip plates for a donor . Looks like all the spacers are there . 

I'm surprised that Western didn't make more of a military style sheath.  It looks like a regular hunting knife sheath of the era.  Good idea on looking for a donor handle.  

There were two styles of sheaths that came with the W31 - "decorated" as shown in the above picture and plain.   

 

Western simply shipped the knives with the type of sheaths they were making at the time, utilitarian. 

 

The plain sheaths came with the "official" paramarine knives that were used in training and then the "fancy" ones, which came with the versions sold through the PX at the training facility.

 

I learned that little detail back in 1978 or 1979, from an old Marine who was running a pawn shop in San Diego who had been a paramarine (one of the few) back in WW2.

 

I had gone into the pawn shop on one of my many forays into looking for old knives and bayonets while stationed in San Diego.  When I asked if he had any old WW2 knives, especially any Westerns, he showed me his W31 that he had on his hip.  It was the first W31 I had ever seen, well, TBH, I didn't even know they had made them.  The KMWWW had only recently been published and I didn't know it existed either.  He explained to me about there being different sheaths for the "training use" and PX versions.

One thing, Western wasn't making any sheaths themselves until after the War was over and they incorporated a leather shop into their operation in 1954.  Until then all sheaths were subcontracted.

All interesting stuff.  thanks for all the input.  I wonder if they was ever a government contract for purchase of this knife.  It may helpful to clarify how many may be out there. 

This one might be a possible donor for you :

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/147322899570

Thanks for showing that to me. It certainly looks like a candidate. 

That one is an xW66, only made in 1941.  The wood is cocobolo, which is the wood used on the W31.

 

The wood portion of the xW66 would be short for the W31 due to the wide spacers at each end of the wood in the handle.