To restore or not to restore?

I picked up these two knives in Vietnam a little over 5 years ago. Recently I've been contemplating cleaning up the blades and making them look as good as possible. However I'm not sure if I should or not. These were left over from the war, I actually bought them in a hotel lobby for 50. I feel that it may take away from the feeling a bit but then again its not like they are going in a museum (any time soon).


AK-47 bayonet

US M8 bayonet


P.S. my dog does nothing to protect my collection, my cats on the other hand...

It never hurts to clean something .

Now chroming them is a different matter , but you know what I mean .

owen

Actually it can drastically hurt the value depending on what you do to "clean" them , I would not do too much more then just wash and maybe oil them a little , Dont try to remove the rust with steel wool or sand paper , the best finish is the original finish , just as you see with antique furniture and guns , the value drops dramatically if messed with , unless they are all very common and you dont care about such things.

BTW Cats Rule !

Dogs Drool .....

My personal rule for this sort of thing is put it back to the condition a soldier might have had it in, but not beyond that. Ifyou do no more than that it will probably not affect value because who is to say if you did it or a soldier did it? Which basically amounts to the same advice Steve just gave.

Cloth items, especially old wool stuff... now there's where you get into a minefield!

Steve

Dunno, aside from cleaning off surface dirt I think the item should be left alone. Just IMHO. THe funny thing is the fakers out there will go tto great lengths to put the stuff on we're talking about taking off!

Chris