Fairbairn-Sykes Daggers...little bits of history...

[Angst]

Hi....now these blades are not really my cup of tea but I am a traditional type of dude so....

today I purchased the one on the right with n/s no. b1/1095999632037 from a nice guy i met on the circuit...it belonged to his grandfather who was a captain in the royal marines....we believe it is iraq issue and that he had the sheath (on right) specially made...it is near mint, and worn for ceremony only, with just some wear on the brass pommel, propbably from clothing....it's pictured dressed in my latest designed sheath.

on the left is an early one stamped with r. cooper that was given to me by a friend (quite innocently, 20 years ago, neither of us till recently knew it was a rarity) with a sheath made for me by another friend...i have gifted this to Sir Hillbill who i believe will give it a more deserving home than me....so no, its not for sale! lol....and i'll be keeping the black one to replace it.

if anyone has further information regarding these knives it would be great to hear....i also bought from him boxed kabar usmc & fallkniven f1's and this rather nice antler handled puma....pic below,

both the puma and the kabar will be on sale at the bushcraft show at cheaper than normal prices, along with chris caine tools, blades by hillbill, perrari and budd as well as knifemaking kits, axe heads, billhooks, hatchets and much much more!

regards!

s

 

[Clouston98]

Good stuff mate! The sheath you've made for it is great, suits it really well!

 

[tombear]

Very nice, not my cup of tea either although I do have a post war minter in the collection just for the sake of it.

Theres about 35 pages on The F-S in Ron Flooks British and Commonwealth Military Knives. Was there any other markings on the left one? Apart from them being Third Patterns ( introduced in 1942 ) there not a lot else I can say without there's some more marks on them. A real bit of history anyway.

atb

Tom

 

[boatman]

A friend of mine had the point broken off his fairbairn-sykes by a colleague after it stuck in the ribs of an insurgent as being less likely to stick in future. This is what they were designed for after all.

 

[TeeDee]

For those interested in the period and more importantly Mr F & Mr S ( as the original Combatives Trainers ) you may be interested to see Cold Steel have produced a reproduction of the 'Smatchet' . Have no idea what this reproduction handles like but may pick one up.

http://www.coldsteel-uk.com/store/Smatchet.html

https://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=...lt_group&ei=npF5U9zgO8TVPO6ageAB&ved=0CDYQsAQ

 

[MartiniDave]

I remember seeing a documentary on Channel 4 where they were interviewing some WW2 commandos about their training & missions. One chap talked quite a bit about his FS knife and how they were trained to hold and use it, at the end of the interview, with a twinkle in his eye he said he mainly used his to toast his bread over the fire!

I seem to remember Lee Marvin snaps one early on in "The Dirty Dozen".

It's I knife I've always fancied, but have no real use for.

Dave

 

[HillBill]

Sweet those mate. Look forward to having a fondle

 

[tombear]

For those interested in Mr Fairbairn, earlier on today I watched a episode of Secrets of War, which will be repeated at 5pm on Yesterday today, which has a section on his training of OSS and SOE with film of him , the FS, Smachet and instinctive pistol shooting.

Although I have absolutely no need of one I'd love a custom Smachet, that and the Great War Whelsh short sword

http://www.ima-usa.com/welsh-wwi-trench-sword-and-scabbard.html.

ATB

Tom