Handle material is quite often unique, beautiful and durable, or all three of these features, but I think the handle on this knife of mine "takes the cake" as far as uniqueness especially. The wood on this handle came from the bottom of one of the first oil wells drilled near my home over 140 years ago. Many of the wells were abandoned after the oil gave out and just recently within the past 5 or 10 years these wooden rods (called sucker rods), were removed from the average depth of 600 feet…

I've been a collector of American antiques for over 65 years starting at about age 13. My main interests were mechanical items, American glass and stoneware, Indian relics, early timbering tools, pocket and sheath knives including firearms. I've always had a job since that age and would buy what my savings would let me. Along these many years of buying, selling and collecting, the first thing I realized that printed guides are just that, a guide which is better used for identification than…