HELP WITH ID: Type, Year?

S

SHalpern1618

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Oct 17, 2017
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5
I picked up this at a antique shop this weekend. The owner and tag said it was from the 70's but that the name badge on the side is different than normally produced. I have tried researching a bit but cant really find anything that will tell me definite of what and where it came from. Hope you all can help.

Thanks
Scott
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1DO31SYK4P4NTNhTThxS0E3SHM/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1DO31SYK4P4WWJhbFp3N0wwSXc/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1DO31SYK4P4UHFfZldIMTEzeFk/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1DO31SYK4P4cWdxM05DWm5HYTg/view?usp=sharing
 
Sweet old knife!! It is a barehead swell end jack, and it dates to the late 1930s and has the very desirable genuine stag handle scales. I do not have my old catalog with me (on vacation) so I can't give you a model number. Way cooler knife than the much more cheaply made knives of the 1970s. Congratulations on a nice antique store find! Is the small blade marked??
 
Thank you soooo much for the info. I found a website with some info but wasn't really sure. No the small blade has no markings
 
GUNSIL --Were you ever able to get that model #?

And to answer your question the small blade is not marked
 
Just got back from vacation Tues, got unpacked and today dug out my old KA-BAR catalog reprint. Sadly the catalog doesn't list sizes but there are knives in it which I have and the pages seem to go from smaller knives to larger knives. I would say that your knife is a model #2263, the first digit being a 2 for genuine stag scales. This would be if your knife has a closed length of 3&1/2 inches. No mark on the second blade should make it very late 30s-1941. During the war the mark was changed to KA-BAR over Olean, NY, and after the war circa 1947-48 to KA-BAR over USA. In 1951 the mark was changed to Kabar in lower case italicizes letters. Again, a nice knife, enjoy it! By the way if you ever decide to part with it I'd love to have it sleep with it's brothers in my KA-BAR drawer.
 
Thank you so much for the info. I am just starting to collect vintage blades and researching where they come from and from what time period. I want to focus on blades from the 50's and older and this is one of my first find so i am pretty excited.

I am sure it's brother woudl enjoy it but for the time being i am going to enjoy it

Thanks again,
 
gunsil said:
Just got back from vacation Tues, got unpacked and today dug out my old KA-BAR catalog reprint. Sadly the catalog doesn't list sizes but there are knives in it which I have and the pages seem to go from smaller knives to larger knives. I would say that your knife is a model #2263, the first digit being a 2 for genuine stag scales. This would be if your knife has a closed length of 3&1/2 inches. No mark on the second blade should make it very late 30s-1941. During the war the mark was changed to KA-BAR over Olean, NY, and after the war circa 1947-48 to KA-BAR over USA. In 1951 the mark was changed to Kabar in lower case italicizes letters. Again, a nice knife, enjoy it! By the way if you ever decide to part with it I'd love to have it sleep with it's brothers in my KA-BAR drawer.
Click to expand...
George Clement what time frame did kabar use the keyed pommel?
 
gunsil said:
...snip... During the war the mark was changed to KA-BAR over Olean, NY, and after the war circa 1947-48 to KA-BAR over USA. In 1951 the mark was changed to Kabar in lower case italicizes letters. Again, a nice knife, enjoy it! By the way if you ever decide to part with it I'd love to have it sleep with it's brothers in my KA-BAR drawer.
Click to expand...

Gene, do these stamp changes also apply to fixed blades, time line wise?
 
Hi Wayne, pretty much so. The pre-WW2 fixed blades will usually have KA-BAR over Reg US Pat Off on the mark or front side, and this mark runs up to about 1942, maybe early 1943. Disregard the tang stamp chart and books that say the KA-BAR over Reg US Pat Off mark was ended in the early 1930s, it just isn't so. The WW2 military knives MK 1 & 2 have KA-BAR over Olean NY on most of them and the civilian fixed blades and pocket knives went to that mark at the same time. (Why use more than one stamp) The KA-BAR over Olean was used right after the war as is seen on fixed blades with this mark that have returned to aluminum pommels, and maybe into 1947, maybe 1948. Then all knives changed to the KA-BAR over USA for a few years and some late 40s-1950 fixed blades had an etched "CARBON KA-BAR CHROME mark on knives that usually had concave ground blades and naturally a chrome finish. When the company name changed to KA-BAR Cutlery Co in 1951 all knives fixed and folding changed to Kabar italicized stamp, and they got the model numbers on the blades with Cole National. "Official KA-BAR" may disagree with me but I am correct here give or take a year or so on the Olean and USA marks, and a mere several months on the change to the Olean mark during the war. My 1950 price list brochure shows the KA-BAR over USA mark clearly. There were some fixed blades made in the 1950s with the only mark being UNION, and these are not pre-KA-BAR knives and look like 50s knives not at all like the early Union Cut Co fixed blades.
 
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Thanks for the timeline, Gene.

Obviously not as specific as Western's annual date stamps, but very useful for assigning a much shorter time frame than some decade or two.
 
George, I am not sure of what you mean by "keyed Pommel". Please explain and I'll help with the time frame.
 
I think I mean when I say keyed pommel is the method of securing the pommel to the knife, it appears to be a brass screw approximately 1/2 inch across and recessed into the aluminum pommel
 
Most of the brass round nut pommel KA-BARs will date from 1923-about 1940-41 although there are some made right after the war with the KA-BAR over Olean, NY mark. Around 1947-1949 they made some lead plug pommels and then went to the pinned on pommels. I believe all the knives made after 1951 with the change to Kabar lower case italicized marks have pinned on pommels. All the KA-BAR over USA knives in my collection have pinned on pommels as do the Carbon KA-BAR Chrome marked knives. These dates are close on the post war knives but there is little info out there available and these dates are going by studying actual knives. Catalogs and price lists do not state pommel types. Aluminum was the first metal to be declared a strategic material and a year or two ahead of brass and neither of these metals were available for civilian use or manufacturing during the war. This is why the end date of 1940-41 is given, and the WW2 made KA-BAR civilian hunting knives of this period will have wood pommels with steel butt plates. I do have a few with wood pommels and brass round nuts made while aluminum was not available but brass was, these are very low production number knives. If you have photos of any particular older KA-BAR hunters I can likely get a fairly close time frame from my collection of original brochures and price lists which do list all handle material options, carbon steel or stainless options, and blade length options. I do have a couple of models not shown in any brochures, but most all of their earlier knives are shown in these papers. Another point is that on the small pre-war made 'Little Hunter" and "Little Trading Post" models there will be two different brass round nut sizes used and seen.
 
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