I do a lot of research on HJ's, Mac, I keep statistics, from every show I attend to, for many, many years now...
That is how I manage to draw conclusions on features that are typical for certain producers. For instance, the late H�rsters, like shown here, they have unique rivets with very small heads, unlike any other maker! Yours has them to! Many collectors still find them suspicious... but they are 100% OK. Unlike the diamond on your H�rster... it is really not original to the knife... sorry to bring that bad news.
About the 50%:
You would be surprised how many HJ knifes -even minty ones- are surfacing with a missing or damaged diamond... I count them on every show!
On top of that, I add the ones which have an replacement diamond -I do x-ray the knifes ! Lots of original (dagger diamond) replacements! But also many diamonds which were originaly HJ-pins are mounted into quality HJ-knifes!
Now even if the % of lost, original diamonds was much less than the over 50% I observed so far, than there would still be not enough original diamonds (from daggers!) to repair the low end HJ-knifes.
That is why fakes and ex-badges (possibly also full reds...) are used on the crappy HJ's.
Now, is that so difficult to follow and understand?
That was all for today, from my side anyway...
Best regards,
Herman
