Help Restoring Old Knife

[Jerry White]

Hi guys. I'm am new to knife making and have started with trying to restore a few old knives i have. This one is kind of special to me so i was hoping to get some tips from the experts for making this one look good again. Short story behind how i came to have this knife. My great grandmother received this knife from a soldier who was travelling home. He was needing a place to stay for a couple of nights on his way home (don't know who he was or where he was from, but my grandmother lived in central Texas, so he was travelling through there). She told me, when he left, he left my grandparents this knife for taking him in. She say's this was sometime in the 40's or 50's, though she couldn't remember exactly. She was old when she gave me the knife and told me about it, so she may have been off on her dates a little. Perhaps someone on this board might know what war or time period this might have been used?? She gave me the knife around 20 years ago; she has since passed on. Did a little research on it and from what I can tell it's not terribly rare or valuable, but I'd like to clean it up and maybe hang it in a shadow box for display.
Anyway, any tips for shining it up, without losing the authenticity of it would be greatly appreciated. It's a Case XX with a brass guard. Not sure of the kind of steel for the blade. As you can see the sheath is probably beyond repair, but it may add to the history of it in a display case if i don't fool with the sheath. Below are a couple of pics. Thanks in advance for any advice on cleaning this knife up.

 

[Raymond Richard]

The knife itself appears to be in good shape. I'd just put a light coat of oil on it and that would be it.

A buddy of mine while in Vietnam received a knife real similar to what you have in a care package from an aunt. When I saw the knife first thing I did was pick it up and I tried to stick it. I didn't throw to hard or far. As soon as it struck what ever it was I tried to stick it in the blade snapped totally off at the handle. I felt terrible about what I had just done but my pal said, I didn't want to pack it anyway. Every time I see a knife like this one I get the same old memory.

 

[Ausbrooks]

As Raymond says oil the blade and leave it alone. You could take a scotch bright and clean the dirt from around the handle pins so they stood out better, and treat the sheath with some neatsfoot oil or snow seal before putting on display.