BV&F - A Holy Grail for Beltrame Collectors

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Luke_of_Mass
Posts: 444
Joined: Tue Jan 03, 2017 7:36 am

BV&F - A Holy Grail for Beltrame Collectors

Post by Luke_of_Mass »

A few years ago, while browsing the now-delete Fredde10 Maniago album on one of the Sharperdeal websites, I saw it was revealed that Frank's personal carry knife appeared to be a 7-inch picklock marked B.V.&F. - A quick google search taught me that this stood for Beltrame Vittorio & Figli - the company where Frank, Armando and (possibly) Renzo Beltrame had their beginnings working as teenagers learning the craft that ultimately became their careers - building stilettos. As an avid Beltrame collector, I really wanted one with this stamp. I wanted one bad. But finding examples pictured online alone proved to be exceedingly difficult, only 1-2 other examples have been posted with pictures on Talkblade during its nigh-20 year history, and google search has equally slim pickings. How on earth would I ever find one for sale? Some weeks before his passing, Rick Giroux told me he had a couple 13'' manuals with the stamp that he would be willing to part with for something like $900 each.... I guess this made me resigned to the likelihood that a knife with this stamp was out of reach for me; if a manual in a clunky size is nearly a thousand bucks.... how much would a nice 8 inch auto be? Guess I got lucky when this one popped up on eBay. Listing was pulled but I tracked down the seller and got him to sell it to me before he listed it on gunbroker.

Really rough shape, but I suppose I've seen worse. One can't be picky when google can only yield less than half a dozen pictures of what you're looking for. Judging by the very reasonable price I got it for, I got it in my head that perhaps I could find a better example at Gator. No dice. In fact, Gator really opened my eyes as to just how rare this stamp must be - you could walk into a place like Gator or Blade with a $1,000 budget in search of a Latama and be done in half an hour, but you could walk in with $10,000 looking for a BV&F and still come away empty-handed after 3 days of mingling. There was only one guy who claimed to have a few but he didn't have them on hand and wasn't selling. Anyway, I put some feelers out for anybody who might have one they're letting go and we'll see where that leads... Naturally anybody reading this post who has one of these they don't want, well, you know what to do :lol:

So, here's the 8'' BV&F Picklock - before and afters - restoration work courtesy of JTK!

Before:

Desperate need for re-scaling and it looks like someone had a go at the bolsters with some steel wool at some point...Button assembly and safety work perfectly, though!

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Warping of the scales caused warping of the liners which lead to terminal swish-marks... has the blade been spared the steel wool? oh no sir it hasn't! ...and the tip has been lost to time..!

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After:

New scale!

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That fabulous stamp... the one and only reason for me to have a knife that started out that rough restored...!

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Those are beads of oil... I need to get a small enough q-tip to clean that out of the otherwise immaculate channel.

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Very impressed at JTK's ability to salvage the rear scale... it looked just like the front, only not as badly cracked... that must have been on real piece of work!

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Rear tang is stamped with a generic "Inox".

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Pretty commendable restoration of the blade by Jeremy - just a little grind and you might not know the tip was once missing... Plus it has now almost a mirror finish!

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I said "Go ahead and make this knife look as new as possible" and he certainly rose to the occasion in my opinion :mrgreen:

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One thing I really dig about this knife is the domed-safety, making it feel more substantial, perhaps 2/3 the height of the button.

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So, there she is... Anybody else have one of these? If so I'd love to see it!!

Thanks everyone for looking/reading

Luke
Last edited by Luke_of_Mass on Sun Jan 10, 2021 5:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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JulesVane
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Re: BV&F - A Holy Grail for Beltrame Collectors

Post by JulesVane »

Congrats Luke on finding what you've looked so hard for, it's a beauty! Another fine job by Jeremy!
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"By accepting you as you are, I do not necessarily abandon all hope of your improving"- My Wife (1963-Present)
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stiletto39
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Joined: Thu Jul 15, 2010 2:15 pm

Re: BV&F - A Holy Grail for Beltrame Collectors

Post by stiletto39 »

Congrats on the find, and the restoration. Here is mine that I shared some years ago on here.. Still have it, resting comfortably in my collection.

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gravknife
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Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2015 9:34 pm

Re: BV&F - A Holy Grail for Beltrame Collectors

Post by gravknife »

Thats a rare old knife you have acquired Luke . 8)

Love that stamp myself but have never come across one in my few years collecting.
Its also great to see such a rare knife restored beautifully like that by Jeremy ,so it keeps going.

Great score mate and really glad you got it .

Thanks for the pics and write up aswell.

gravknife
Lucentcrow
Posts: 595
Joined: Sun Feb 03, 2019 2:02 pm
Location: Tonbridge

Re: BV&F - A Holy Grail for Beltrame Collectors

Post by Lucentcrow »

I really enjoy your posts always full of information and I’m learning a lot, lovely knife and lovely job by Jeremy .

Joe
Tom19176
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Re: BV&F - A Holy Grail for Beltrame Collectors

Post by Tom19176 »

Nice work and knife!
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rock-n-roll$$$$$$
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Re: BV&F - A Holy Grail for Beltrame Collectors

Post by rock-n-roll$$$$$$ »

wow Luke,that BV&F looks brand new,bring it to Mystic.
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sprink
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Re: BV&F - A Holy Grail for Beltrame Collectors

Post by sprink »

Great knife and story, congratulations Luke.
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picklocksrock
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Re: BV&F - A Holy Grail for Beltrame Collectors

Post by picklocksrock »

That’s a very nice find! I’m super impressed with that restoration work. I still can’t get over how well the whole thing cleaned up, especially that spring! Well done.
“Tough times never last, but tough people do”
-Robert H. Shuller
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Corvus
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Re: BV&F - A Holy Grail for Beltrame Collectors

Post by Corvus »

Congrats on reeling-in your grail. Great story, great restoration and great knife. The precious stamp still looks deep and sharp after its stint in rehab.
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natcherly
Connoisseur dei Coltelli
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Re: BV&F - A Holy Grail for Beltrame Collectors

Post by natcherly »

Great story. That certainly turned out well. BTW, what's with the Cyrillic keyboard?
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Luke_of_Mass
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Re: BV&F - A Holy Grail for Beltrame Collectors

Post by Luke_of_Mass »

natcherly wrote:Great story. That certainly turned out well. BTW, what's with the Cyrillic keyboard?
I like to joke to people that maybe if I learn Russian, I might land a job in the crapitol! :lol:

But the real story goes something like this; I wanted a backlit keyboard and this Polish eBay seller had this model on sale buy 1 get 1 free with free shipping - the pictures showed the Latin alphabet-only version, but when they both came, they had Latin/Cyrillic keys. The seller was willing to refund me if I mailed them back, but postage was in the 50 dollar range which was more than I paid for both keyboards. I ended up keeping them since I didn't really mind and the keys had a great feel to them.

The most frustrating aspect though when it comes to learning Cyrillic is that the symbols that make similar sounds to that in the Latin alphabet are on entirely different keys! :roll:

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Might upgrade to a mechanical soon though.
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