I will take this opportunity to introduce myself to visitors of this site. My name is John Kroezen. I live in Port Lincoln, South Australia where I am able to enjoy my other passions of Hunting, Fishing and Skindiving as well.

Most of my adult life was spent as a member of the Army Reserve. Enlisting in 2 Commando Company in Melbourne and later serving in South Australia in 43 RSAR and 10 RSAR. And a little while back, helped establish and run the 416 Regional Army Cadet Unit in Port Lincoln.

I am a firearms owner and have never been happy about the way Australian Firearms Owners were treated in recent history. If knife owners aren't careful they will end up being treated the same way. Remember we have no "Bill of Rights" to protect us in Australia.

When it comes to the field of collecting knives, I do not consider myself an expert, only an enthusiast. I rely heavily on fellow collectors and am never afraid to ask questions. I always enjoy viewing other collections and individual knives. You never know when you might learn something new or find that piece of information you need to fill in that puzzle.

I have been collecting military bladeware for many years, but never seriously. Over the years I picked up swords, bayonets and various knives with no particular theme in mind.

Then in 2002 I purchased a WW2 Whittingslowe 2nd pattern Clasp Knife. This knife was identical to one I was issued with many years ago when I first joined the Army Reserve and was then lost somewhere along lifes journey. Although I had acquired the more modern Stainless Steel version and carried it for many years it just didn't have the character of the original.

I then purchased several in succession from a variety of sources. I sat down one day and said to myself "This is getting silly" and decided to get rid of some of them. When I had a close look at them I discovered that I had some with different marks representing different manufacturers. This came as a surprise for I hadn't considered that there might have been more than one supplier and resolved to learn more. All of a sudden I had a theme, "Australian Military Clasp Knives"! When I purchased a copy of Ron Flooks excellent reference book "British and Commonwealth Military Knives" I became more motivated and decided that once I had collected an example of each of the clasp knives that I would then broaden my collection to "Australian Military Knives". I mean, after all, how hard could this be? Australia only made clasp knives during WW2 and since then have bought them overseas. Ron Flooks book identifies 8 manufacturers/models. So far I have acquired all of the knives on that original list; but I have also picked up, or am aware of 10 other manufacturers/models not mentioned by Flook, plus a manufacturing variant. I also suspect several others that I am looking for proof for. The closer I get the further away it seems I am.

It was not long before I started to look at the other Australian Fighting Knives and like any committed (or is it addicted) collector, realised I just had to have one or two more pieces in my collection. I have added Australian Army Stiletto's (AAS) aka Australian Commando Knives, Fairbairn Sykes (FS) fighting knives with an Australian connection, specimens of the Australian Army Utility Knife (AAUK) and some Australian machetes to the collection as well. Plus some other knives with an Australian connection.

Many of the knives shown on the site are from my collection but I have also relied heavily on the generosity of other collectors to make the site far more complete and useful as a resource. I am deeply indebted to these other collectors.

I love to talk to non knife people about knife collecting, some people out of fear might throw away a knife they found in Grandpa's shed because it looked like a dagger and thought they might get in trouble with the Police. Only to find out later that they threw away a 1st model Fairbairn Sykes Fighting Knife (F/S) or a Greg Steel Commando Knife (Australian Army Stiletto). If I can help inform them that the knife can be owned legally they might even decide to keep it and become collectors themselves or they might sell it to a collector. Either way the knife is saved for posterity.

So here is my humble web site. I hope it helps the beginning collector. I hope also that I might even put up some information that benefits the knowledgeable collector. If anyone sees anything on the site that is incorrect please contact me so that I can correct it.

If you have a question about a knife please don't hesitate to ask. I might not know the answer but I will try and help you as much as I can.

I have deliberately avoided putting a Guestbook on the site. The spammers only fill them with crap. If you would like to make a comment, just

Please bookmark the site and check back from time to time because I will always be expanding, updating and where necessary correcting it.

I hope you enjoy your visit.