Camillus made USMC commemorative knife oddity?...

[PocketKnifeJimmy]

While at a gunshow earlier this year, I picked up this 25 year old Camillus NY made (Kabar style) USMC commemorative knife (commemorating the 50th anniversary of WW2). The gentleman that sold it to me explained that he had been a Camillus knife dealer when Camillus was still operating. He was offered a few of these knives with the explaination that the blades had their false edges sharpened, but that the commemorative series these knives were going to be a part of, were decided to not have the sharpened false edges. So, with some of these blades having been sharpened at the false edge area, they were assembled, but sold seperately from the cataloged commemorative series. These differ from the series by not only having the top, usually false edge, sharpened, but also by having a standard phosphated (parkerized) guard and pommel, rather than being gold plated as with the standard offered commemorative series specimens. Anyhow, I have no clue how many of these were assembled using these commemorative series blades, but I imagine them to be somewhat of an oddity (my being into collecting knives and such, I am okay with that). Anyhow, just sharing here, and I welcome any thoughts you may have about such specimens 👍☺

 

[Phil Gibbs]

Sorry, no truth to the story at all.

The Commemorative knives that were blued with gold etches were not sharpened at all on either main edge or "false" edge.
Your knife is unique solely because someone sharpened the edges after it left the factory.

To further illuminate the BS of the "dealer's" story, all fixed blades were sharpened as the final operation, not before assembly!

 

[PocketKnifeJimmy]

I only had the "Dealer's" story to go on, so it's the only thing I could share here. I did try to find similar offerings of these commemorative knives online, just to compare, and all I turned up were pics of them with gold plated pommels and guards. My specimen has a standard phosphated pommel and guard, and that itself seems to have been factory done and assembled (even though it's different than the standard commemorative series). Maybe this could mean that this specimen, for whatever the reason(s), got sharpened at the factory as well. For all I know, it may even be what the knife world terms a "lunch box special" (a knife put together by an employee with whatever parts, then taken home in their "lunch box")
I may never know why the discrepancies on this specimen, but everything seems to be first quality in nature... I just don't know it's story.
Hoping someone that worked at the factory chimes in with some possible solid information that may shed more light on the matter 👍☺

 

[sac troop]

"Hoping someone that worked at the factory chimes in with some possible data"

He already did. Phil is as close to an unimpeachable source of what happened at Camillus as there is.

Other than the lack of gold pommel and guard the knife looks like the U.S.M.C. knife from the 1990 commemorative WW2 set of 4 knives. Camillus catalogs only show a 50th anniversary knife for "Pearl Harbor" in the 1991 catalog. In the 1992 catalog they do have a 50th anniversary U.S.M.C. that is dated 1942, 1992 and is otherwise marked very different than yours.
http://www.collectors-of-camillus.us/Catalogs/1992-Catalog-3s.pdf
http://www.collectors-of-camillus.us/Catalogs/1991-Anniv-flyers.pdf
http://www.collectors-of-camillus.us/Catalogs/1990-Catalogs.pdf

(????)
At the very least it seems to qualify as a "curiosity".

Maybe not so curious after all. Found an example of the Navy sister knife to this set at this auction complete with sheath, same pommel and guard as yours.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/US-Camillus...nife-Sheath-/401102963483?hash=item5d6399831b

 

[PocketKnifeJimmy]

Thanks for your input. And yes, the Navy marked knife you shared the link to, does have the same sharpened edges and phosphated pommel/guard components as mine.

I still have not run into any more pics of specimens exactly like mine online, but have found a couple more Navy models (again, like mine in having the non gold plated pommels/guards, and having the same sharpened edges)...

And here are a couple of pictures of the standard series of WW2 commemorative knives (unsharpened blades and gold plated pommels/guards)...