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This Old Knife Here is a little forum dedicated to talking about, but not limited to, vintage and antique knives. Pics and stories of special knives or your favorite patterns are encouraged. No experts here. Just guys chattin about old knives and the legends we hav |
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#1
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Please help ID this knife maker
Hi. I'm new to this forum, just joined today. Actually, just found it today.
I purchased this knife this weekend at the Ft. Worth Gun show. It has a 3 3/4 inch blade (stainless I think), with a brass single-quillion guard, and a tapered tang. The grip material may or may not be a replacement. It is old Ivory Micarta with a black liner and 4 brass pins. It has a Pronghorn scrimshawed on the left side done by Gerald Tisdale (the reason I bought this knife). The maker's logo is on the left side ricosso and consists of the letters "JMK" linked together inside an oval. I estimate the knife to have been made in the 70s or early 80s. That is when Tisdale was doing his work down in Laredo. Gerry and his partner Pappy are both gone now so I can't ask them. Any help with identifying the maker would be appreciated. Thanks. Antelope Knife 1.jpg.jpg Antelope Knife 2.jpg.jpg __________________ Joseph Gardsbane "Everything I say can be verified.......by my own opinion." |
#2
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Here it is 8 years later. I was recently given a book by a friend entitled "KNIVES Points of Interest Book II (copyright 1987) by Jim Weyer. On pages 116 and 117 is a knife with the identical makers stamp. It is attributed to John Miyakawa. I can find exactly 0 about him online or at any of the local gun/knife shows around Dallas. Does anyone know who this maker is, where he is located, if he is even still alive? Any information at all would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
__________________ Joseph Gardsbane "Everything I say can be verified.......by my own opinion." |
#3
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Miyakawa is a town not a knifemaker. Being familiar with Japanese knives this is common marking. To know the artisan that made the knife look for a guild cypher on the knife. Kami-Miyakawa is in a well known metal refining area of Chiba, Japan. The construction of the Kawasaki Steel Works in Chiba City in 1953 marked the beginning of the large-scale construction of heavy industry infrastructure in the industrial zone, and other industries soon followed. The deepwater ports of the Keiyō Industrial Zone were built starting in the 1950s. Heavy metal and chemical production were among the highest in Japan by the 1970s. The Keiyō Industrial Zone brought together smaller industrial areas along the entirety of the western coast of Chiba Prefecture, and the industrial zone became, and remains an important center of heavy industrial production and large-scale port facilities in Japan including Nippon Steel Kimitsu Works in 2007.
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#4
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Colonel,
Sorry, but his Miyakawa is a person not a town. Please look at the makers mark on the pictures in my first post. I have definitely id'd that is John Miyakawa, knifemaker by the picture in the book referenced in my second post. However, thank you for your input. Joe __________________ Joseph Gardsbane "Everything I say can be verified.......by my own opinion." |
#5
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I did not see your photo at first. Good guess because the Mirykawa area still makes knives. Anyway you can inquire to Bob Tice Knives at this link:
www.bobticeknives.com/custom-K-R.html He has "Johnny Mirykawa" listed with other custom knife makers. Does not show any examples though. |
#6
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Miyakawa
I am impressed at the length this thread has gone on.
![]() http://www.cuttingedge.com/knife/klc...25252BMiyakawa Hope this helps. J. |
#7
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This is a help but hard to be exactly sure with such a rare individual:
https://plus.google.com/111348087133061552275 It is Johnny Mirakawa's profile on Google+ he has. No posts, less than ten followers. |
#8
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I found a death record for Johnny Miyakawa in Texas in 1994...before the internet was really prevalent. That's probably why there isn't much info.
-Mark |
#9
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Death Records
The death records are not available to general public. Only family members next of kin allowed to view. There are many websites that claim to give access to such documents but are fake. I have searched records like this looking too. For a fee they will show a blurry photo of a death certificate with yours or my name too.
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#10
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I have no reason to doubt the information. No documents are available to me, but government lists via ancestry sites aren't all that uncommon. The sources I use are completely accurate when it comes to several generations of MY family concerning dates and places. Johnny Miyakawa is listed as a maker in Texas according to Levine's Guide 4. The records I find support that.
-Mark |
#11
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Johnny Miyakawa in Knippa, Texas
This maker is from Knippa, Texas. http://www.cuttingedge.com/knife/klc...e:%252Fknives% 252Fcurrently_available%252Fpage%253A3
Currently in Knippa, Texas there is CFA Cutlery Company (Custom Forged Knives). This part of Texas is small population and only five square miles in size. http://www.customforgedknives.com The CFK knives are available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/CFK-Cutlery-C...b_12729321011? ie=UTF8&node=12729321011&field-lbr_brands_browse-bin=CFK+Cutlery+Company Also at Walmart. You can contact CFK and ask if Johnny Mirakawa's was ever a contracted designer for the knife patterns that they offshore. Also ask if he dead? |
#12
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CFK is based in Hillsboro Oregon (I was in front of their office, just around the corner from Murray Carter's forge a couple of days ago), and the trademark was first used in 2014. Miyakawa would have no association, especially if the only Johnny Miyakawa in Texas has been dead since 1994, according to The National Archives website.
-Mark Last edited by polishguy; 02-01-2017 at 01:09 PM. |
#13
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https://m.yp.com/knippa-tx/survival-products-supplies
This link says CFK serves the Knippa, Texas area. They may have headquarters elsewhere like you found. The Johnny Miyakawa knife showed in link at the top of my last post says they got it from Knippa, Texas. Miyakawa is a name that is used in Thailand. There are custom knife makers there that may know too. The US distributors of imports are many and their foreign agents conduct various factory locations and designers that are forever unknown. Why care so much when a genuine Miyakawa knife is too rare to ever get one? Pradel made knives also very rare to own a genuine. Many have pirated the Pradel and copied the logo and look fooling buyers into big bucks for fakes. The Johnny Miyakawa at Walmart is offshored but if a seller tricks you into believing it is genuine makes a bundle. What do you want it for the style or because Miyakawa handmade it himself? |
#14
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I'm kind of perplexed by your response. CFK has NOTHING to do with Johnny Miyakawa. Pradel has NOTHING to do with Johnny Miyakawa. Nobody is trying to fool anybody into thinking Miyakawa's custom knives are anybody BUT Miyakawa's. Miyakawa hand made knives in Knippa, Texas, 11 miles from where records show Johnny Miyakawa died at age 48 in 1994. He had a short-lived, pre-internet career as a knifemaker...thusly, very few examples are floating around and little information exists. Why is this so hard to accept? Why go looking around the world or in a company that didn't exist when Miyakawa was alive, for a deceased American knifemaker?
-Mark |
#15
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You must look yourself closer but I cannot do better for you.
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