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EGW (Ezra G. Waterman) Knives

Good Afternoon!

Supposedly one of the 'popular' private purchase knives in WWII, was the EGW knife.

I stumbled across these recently, and have tried to learn what I can of them, and it seems that there were several models, or types. Of course I have not been able to get a good description of each model or type.

So far, I have learned that there were at least 3 (maybe 4) blade lengths, three styles of handles, four styles of notches, and the ricasso markings were also varied. I believe that the stacked leather discs with the red plastic spacers were made post was (1945 to 1950).

I have been building a spreadsheet of all of the different combinations that I have found so far, and there are a lot of combinations! A few of the options only seem to be active with certain blade lengths, so we cant simply multiply all the options to get the total number of combinations.

Does anyone have any good information (nah... ANY information) regarding these knives? I am trying to find information, but that seems to be a tough commodity to come by given as popular as they were supposed to be.

PLEASE ADD ADDITIONAL INFORMATION OR LINKS BELOW.

THANKS!

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kevin D on March 25, 2024 at 19:08

Here are a few combinations that I have identified.

The three types of handles are: stacked leather discs, stacked leather discs with spacers, and two-piece wooden handles. The two shorter blades seem to be the only ones that had the option of having a wooden handle.

Blade lengths of 5" and 6-3/8" seem to be only lengths that had what I call radiused notches. Some might call these bottle openers.

7-3/8" long blades seem to be the only ones with 'V' notches, although I have seen both regular and shallow versions of this 'V' notch.

I have seen examples of all three blade lengths with a smooth back as well as some with a 'saw-back'.

I have also seen/read rumours of an 8" blade that were only allowed to certain very select troops (almost like special forces). These knives had no notches at all and all had a smooth spine on the blade.

Thus far I can not find a pattern to the ricasso markings. I suspect that markings correlated to different 'types' or manufactured years. But I need more information to verify all of this.

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