Help identifying a dagger

[amenpash]

Hello to everybody
This is my first post that I am submitting to this great community.
Could you please help me identifying the dagger as per attached pictures.
Thank you

 

[Sundance]

I'm no expert but i like the knife. Apparently soldier/ theater made.

 

[Sundance]

I've seen that cross guard but can't place it right now. Looks perhaps to have been made from a cut down sword.

 

[R. Porter]

I've seen that cross guard but can't place it right now. Looks perhaps to have been made from a cut down sword.

I agree the blade looks swordish. There are serrations on cutting edge and spine, tool marks? Maybe a vise to hold the blade while working on it. Looks like power tool marks in the fuller. With the tool marks on the cutting edge, my guess is that it wasn't sharpened and maybe it was made in someone's garage or barn to look old and impressive. When did knife makers start using leather washers for grips? I don't think I've seen any before about 1900. But I really know nothing about knives and so many people have made them, it could be anything.

 

[amenpash]

Thank you for your answers.
I checked with magnifier and no marks.

 

[JackADriscoll]

This is a tough one. It's got a very German world war 1 dagger feel to me. Like someone shortened a hunting sword and improved the grip

 

[Rhea Cole]

The parallel tool marks on the blade are mechanical. Somebody used a coarse belt sander or wheel on this blade. That is not the mark of a skillful sword or knife or white smith. Most likely it is the result of an inept attempt to clean up the blade… Or…

A close look at the edge of the blade provides an alternative solution. The fine toothed edges & the parallel marks are from the file that the blade was made from. Many a blacksmith knife has been made from files turned into both crude & fine.

 

[JackADriscoll]

The parallel tool marks on the blade are mechanical. Somebody used a coarse belt sander or wheel on this blade. That is not the mark of a skillful sword or knife or white smith. Most likely it is the result of an inept attempt to clean up the blade… Or…

A close look at the edge of the blade provides an alternative solution. The fine toothed edges & the parallel marks are from the file that the blade was made from. Many a blacksmith knife has been made from files turned into both crude & fine.

Goodn catch. When you zoom in you really see the ghosts of the file

 

[scooter748driver]

Welcome from the Fort Sumter and the Fredericksburg forums.

 

[Rhea Cole]

Goodn catch. When you zoom in you really see the ghosts of the file

Thanks, my blacksmith great grandfather & others spent the winter months in Tennessee making knives from sawmill blades. The 1914 steam engine that powered the blades stayed in the family until modern times. Lord knows I have seen a zillion blacksmith file knives over the last 30 years or so.

That doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with that. Recycling files, chisels, punches & other iron monger's items into knives has a very long history among the blacksmithing fraternity… for the last few thousand years or so.

 

[JackADriscoll]

Thanks, my blacksmith great grandfather & others spent the winter months in Tennessee making knives from sawmill blades. The 1914 steam engine that powered the blades stayed in the family until modern times. Lord knows I have seen a zillion blacksmith file knives over the last 30 years or so.

That doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with that. Recycling files, chisels, punches & other iron monger's items into knives has a very long history among the blacksmithing fraternity… for the last few thousand years or so.

Definitely. Waste not want not .

 

[R. Porter]

Goodn catch. When you zoom in you really see the ghosts of the file

I didn't think it was a file. The scratches don't look uniform and they go in several different directions. There appears to be a fuller and a small fuller along what might have been the spine, as in a sword. However, looks can be deceiving and more photos or a physical examination might suggest a different story to me, even a file. From what I've seen, files were commonly made into knives before, during and after the Civil War in America and other areas would be no different.

 

[52ndFandS]

I've seen that cross guard but can't place it right now. Looks perhaps to have been made from a cut down sword.

That was my guess too.

 

[JackADriscoll]

The tiny teeth on both edges are what are throwing me off for the cut sword theory

 

[amenpash]

I am attaching more close up pictures.
Thank you for all your effort great people

 

[RetiredCanuck]

I'd bet money it's an old file. Not just from the serrations, look at the lead angle of the teeth. Forward lean and absolutely identical.
I sold cutting tools to machine shops for 40 years and I can see the profile of a flat tapered file. Must have sold 100 of these at least.

 

[R. Porter]

The teeth are too regular for random tool marks. That would suggest a file or saw blade. The hunting swords I have seen have saw edges that look different. I would think saw blades would look thinner. A file would work. I'm thinking now that as the file was worked into a blade another file was used on it and its marks combined with the original file pattern of the blade helped confuse me about the file origin. I have a lot more to learn about knives!

 

[1SGDan]

Help identifying a dagger

Yes that is a dagger.

 

[RetiredCanuck]

See the section I've pulled from the above photos.
If you expand it, you will see the faint but telltale regular slanted lines which are remnants of the file teeth.
I think the random deeper scratches are from a die grinder or a flap wheel, used to form a very crude hollow for the gullet.