I decided to get this one out and carry it for a while. It's rough but quite serviceable and a good user. The local knife store had a nice CV Texas jack in amber bone that I picked up for a fair price, and also this one that was identical right down to the date code, except really grungy with a lot of pitting on the blades, mostly in the spine area. It was priced right (cheap) so I bought it also, intending to use it to experiment with patina and bone dying. I've forgotten what all I tried; I know I did brown that looked pretty good, then blue but it didn't really take, then back to brown followed by red to change the shade a bit to something I like even more. The patina was done with hot vinegar followed by 0000 steel wool. The apparent fingerprints on the clip blade are actually in the mineral oil coating, which I put on fairly thick last night after a sharpening session. Funny, what we might think of as a beat up old knife today I would have been proud to carry and use every day as a kid. (I didn't notice until I took the photo that there's still some dye in the lettering on the shield!)