I am glad that we found iknife. I am Heather and my husband in the picture is John. We inherited a knife collection from my father-in-law Larry Stanford. As we have learned with all collections, there is a story behind the collection.

Larry was a avid collector of WWII daggers and mother of pearl knives. John remembers going on family vacations to Grandfather Mountain to get knives for his father and swords for his mother. Growing up they lived a modest life and his father would bring home a new knife and it was his pride and joy. He would put them in a glass case and start saving for another new one. It did not get to come as often as he would like because his wife loved the swords.

After the wife was vetoed, his collection grew and he would often go to Knife shows in IL, KY, TN and FL. Christmas and Birthday presents were all knives for family and friends. My boys started getting knives for presents at about 6. I even got a knife Christmas ornament.

After Larry's passing, it was his desire for us to auction his WWII dagger collection. He bought those items at first as a love and then as he called it "his retirement". The knives have been in a safe for about 2 years. Some we are keeping and passing on to our boys and some we are going to sell and have a few leads out.

Our main objective is to find out about some of these knives. It seems that with these, he also preferred German knives. Larry would tell stories about his collection for hours. Between his knives and his daggers, there were over 1,000 of them combined. He had this room with 4 locks on it and a huge safe. We were only allowed to go in there when we did not have our children with us. We have 4 of them so history on these passed to us was limited.

With everything with Larry, there was a reason for these in particular. It had to be special to him to have a home in his special room.

We live in IL. I have a absurd need and want for knowledge. If someone tells me something and I find it interesting, I research it till I understand.

That is about all for Larry and his collection. I am sure that some will know him. Thank you for having this website so people like me can learn.