The recent thread on "evil" knives prompted me to pull this one from my evil safe. Marked W over MF over 72, this Cold War war BUND gravity knife is in pretty good condition. I guess I'm just a sucker for weird stuff.
German Gravity Knife
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Nice!
I remember when those were readily available at gun shows. The Marlin spike makes me think they were intended for sailors.
Here's an earlier German gravity knife made by G. Grafrath in Solingen.
I remember when those were readily available at gun shows. The Marlin spike makes me think they were intended for sailors.
Here's an earlier German gravity knife made by G. Grafrath in Solingen.
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Years ago when these were available a friend and I bought 30 of them to improve. I had a variety of nice hard to find old wood so we made wooden scales. This one is real ebony and somewhere have one in catalpa thats striped. Blade is marked " Solingen" with a tree rat.
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I believe the original intent of the spike was for untangling knots in ropes when packing parachutes.
Shrek Of The Arctic
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Dang. I'm in my early fifties now. These knife threads sure are good for nudging me to take a stroll down memory lane. I did most of my growing up in small town Georgia. I of course realize that my experience is NOT indicative of anybody else's, but as far as knives go, I was raised with modest slipjoint being the solution to most any knife a man would want to carry. The big debate was a carbon steel Case, or a Buck slip joint. Carbon steel discolored easily, but them bucks was nigh impossible to sharpen on an Arkansas stone. The Buck 110 of course existed, but them was for rednecks, and bikers and the like. "Ain't no Southern gentleman needs nuthin' that big" If'n you cain't skin a deer with a three bladed Stockman, you ain't fit to hunt no how"
This of course, set me dead on course for "The forbidden fruit" Every chance I got I picked up some Milano switchblade, a cheap NATO OTF, those orange Colonial chute knives, a gravity, knife, butterfly knife, etc. To be fair, my parents only forbade the autos. Everything else they just...disapproved of. Most of those knives kinda proved my parents right on some level. They really were pretty trashy. But the gravity knives...Those deserved more credit than they received. I'd like to find another one some day, as long as it ain't ridiculously expensive.
I remember seeing the Soviet Ballistics knives in the pages of Shotgun News. They didn't come with a spring, and I had no idea how to get one, AND...it took six to eight weeks to arrive! That was never gunna work for me! It's funny to thinK that if not for cold war over reaction those things would be available on Amazon for $12-$25.
By the late eighties when the Emersons, Benchmades, and Spydercos started to appear in my Father's "American Rifleman" magazines, I would have donated body parts to get one.
Knife rights get nowhere near the coverage that gun rights do, but they should get more. Clearly, there are those among us who don't understand them all that well. I remember for awhile here in Alaska, it was perfectly legal for me to open carry a handgun as a teenager. It was perfectly legal to carry a concealed handgun without a permit after 21 years of age. But basically any knife that could have been opened with one hand was illegal. "any folding knife that could be opened by spring, gravity, or kinetic function" to paraphrase the law of the time.
It's crazy now to just look at the selection available at Amazon or Wal- Mart and consider what that would have been like in 1985. Of course, all this racket about the evils of one handed opening knives occurring while fixed blades were as ubiquitous as ever is kinda humorous in an ironic way. I guess that was the predictable result when knife laws were made based on 1950's street gang movies. I don't hear it so much anymore, but I remember a phrase "You can't legislate morality" In my personal experience and philosophy, I've come to consider myself as very naive when I used to utter that phrase. I now absolutely believe morality can be legislated. and I consider that as the primary reason we need to be mindful of legislation as it pertains to our individual rights.
The forementioned "Evil Knives" thread would have been right at home in the times grew up in. I'm glad things have changed.
I admire the OP's great knife collection. I have many custom knives, exotic steel, etc. but nothing quite as cool as an authentic cold war ballistic knife!
This of course, set me dead on course for "The forbidden fruit" Every chance I got I picked up some Milano switchblade, a cheap NATO OTF, those orange Colonial chute knives, a gravity, knife, butterfly knife, etc. To be fair, my parents only forbade the autos. Everything else they just...disapproved of. Most of those knives kinda proved my parents right on some level. They really were pretty trashy. But the gravity knives...Those deserved more credit than they received. I'd like to find another one some day, as long as it ain't ridiculously expensive.
I remember seeing the Soviet Ballistics knives in the pages of Shotgun News. They didn't come with a spring, and I had no idea how to get one, AND...it took six to eight weeks to arrive! That was never gunna work for me! It's funny to thinK that if not for cold war over reaction those things would be available on Amazon for $12-$25.
By the late eighties when the Emersons, Benchmades, and Spydercos started to appear in my Father's "American Rifleman" magazines, I would have donated body parts to get one.
Knife rights get nowhere near the coverage that gun rights do, but they should get more. Clearly, there are those among us who don't understand them all that well. I remember for awhile here in Alaska, it was perfectly legal for me to open carry a handgun as a teenager. It was perfectly legal to carry a concealed handgun without a permit after 21 years of age. But basically any knife that could have been opened with one hand was illegal. "any folding knife that could be opened by spring, gravity, or kinetic function" to paraphrase the law of the time.
It's crazy now to just look at the selection available at Amazon or Wal- Mart and consider what that would have been like in 1985. Of course, all this racket about the evils of one handed opening knives occurring while fixed blades were as ubiquitous as ever is kinda humorous in an ironic way. I guess that was the predictable result when knife laws were made based on 1950's street gang movies. I don't hear it so much anymore, but I remember a phrase "You can't legislate morality" In my personal experience and philosophy, I've come to consider myself as very naive when I used to utter that phrase. I now absolutely believe morality can be legislated. and I consider that as the primary reason we need to be mindful of legislation as it pertains to our individual rights.
The forementioned "Evil Knives" thread would have been right at home in the times grew up in. I'm glad things have changed.
I admire the OP's great knife collection. I have many custom knives, exotic steel, etc. but nothing quite as cool as an authentic cold war ballistic knife!
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The Original knife was a WWII german fallschirmjager knife , german paratroopers. Knife was to be used in working with parachutes thus the spike to undo knots and help in rigging.
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