A good friend of mine has a Jimmy Lile First blood survival knife in his collection that has been signed by Mr Lile himself.It was bought around 15-18 years ago he thinks in Pigeon forge TN. where he met the man personally.I think it was probably not long after the 1st movie was released,so my question is whats it worth? He or I neither know although I offered him a grand for it.I think it may be worth more than that,but does anyone here know for sure?Any info would be greatly appreciated.
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J Lile blade value?
- Thread starter marsupial
- Start date
There are two variations. The original had a phillips screwdriver and a flat screwdriver on the guard as I recall. The other had a plain lugged stainless guard (that would be the SlyII) Which one has he got? Other than the guard, the knives should be pretty much identical, split row of sawteeth, bead blasted blade...I have a SlyII that I bought about 20 years ago from Jimmy. Just a neat knife, never used it though. I would be curious as to the value, but, I would think its safely worth about a thousand in either variation with the screwdriver guard being a bit higher.
Hmmm...Well, all the old Lile stuff is just marked LILE. After Jimmy passed away, they added a dot on top of the "I" and it looks more like "LiLE". I'm sure its original. When you say it has Liles signature, do you mean the stamped mark on it or is it some other way marked by Jimmy? A Looong time ago, he marked all his stuff with an engraver, that is pretty old and more valuable. But, I don't think he was doing that anymore when the First Blood series came out. Any of the Lile knives without the dot are getting to be collector pieces and any current Lile knife is still a good knife. (beat him down in price and get it...you can justify it SOMEHOW....)
Thats some good info sgt,I did not know about the I markings.When I say signed I should have said that the box is signed not the actual blade itself.But the blade does have his name on it according to what I have been told.I will research this more and hopefully be able to give more distinct markings later on.
marsupial, there were commercial repros of the Lile Rambo knives. IMHO they are basically wallhangers or knives for wannabees. Hollow handled knives (with the exception of the Reeve one piece design) have an inherent weakness at the blade-handle junction since an extended tang cannot be used. The repros were not of the highest quality to begin with. The fact that you say he got it in Pigeon Forge, home of Smoky Mountain Knife Works and the that the BOX was signed by Jimmy Lile leads me to believe it is one of the commercial knives. I don't know about Lile, but most custom makers I am familiar with do not waste money having specific boxes made up for their knives they just used plain old cardboard or USPS priority mail boxes to ship their knives. Jimmy was from Arkansas. It is possible he was at SMKW doing a promotion for the commercially lincensed repros fo the knife. In that case, I would think Jimmy's autograph would be worth more than the knife. I may be way off base here but CAVEAT EMPTOR!
phantom4
phantom4
Phantom there is no question that this is a real Lile,my friend paid $700.00 for it then and Lile only had 5 with him at the time.I would think he would have had more if it were a prod piece.My friend told me he signed the box which I too found odd from a custom maker but like I said I will see this knife in a few weeks and will have more info.Thanksfor all the info.