My personal opinion, as everyone here knows, is do not overclean, simply stabilize with something light like WD40 which will clean and show the wonderful patina.
As a historian, this is well earned over time and I feel it should remain. a weapon garishly cleaned into shiny awfulness to me is bad.
The grip is indeed not very good, but it is something, otherwise this would simply be a 'relic'.
As many of these as were in service, its amazing how hard they are to find. Always tried to find anything with VOC markings but never did.
These blades were produced in either Solingen or German shops in Netherlands, I forget the names of the cities. They were not issued, as VOC was private company so were sold to the individuals, as I have understood.
|