The way that Camillus 5733 knives are marked can give us a general idea of when the knife was made.
The knife pattern was developed by the U.S. Navy working with the Marble's knife Company. The original design had a 6 inch blade. The knife comes into existence in 1957. Camillus was chosen by the Government to compete with Marble's to make the first knives. The short answer is that Camillus won the competition and was awarded the contract to make these knives.
The first knives were made with a pommel that screwed onto the tang of the knife. This was discovered to be an added expense and some also believed it to be a weak point, so the design was changed to peening the tang to the pommel.
From 1957 to 1961 the knives were made with 6 inch blades.
The specification, (coming from the Government), was changed and the blade length was changed to 5 inches in 1961.
From the start of production thru 1966, per Government specification, Camillus marked the knives on the blade with this tang stamp for both the 6 and 5 inch blade knives.
The Government made many changes to the specification for these knives over the years. MIL-K-8662 is the specification number. As the specification changes that number is followed by different letters, such as B,C,D,E.
The marking specification was changed from marking the knife on the blade to marking the knife on the pommel. Besides the name of the Company who made the knife, a date was also added to the text of the stamp.
This is the way the MIL-K-8662 knives are marked from 1967 to present.
In reflection, I shouldn't have posted the picture of the knife on the left side in the post yesterday. It's an anomaly knife. A blade left over from the 1966 production was used to make that 1-1967 5733 knife. Most examples of even the 1-1967 marked knives are made with a sterile blade. Camillus did use up the rather small quantity of 1966 blades when the change was made. Still the image of that knife can be confusing.
From 1967 to 3-1985 the Camillus made 5733 knives are only marked on the pommel. This doesn't include special runs of commemorative knives made for the commercial market that were often blade etched.
Sorry that I took so long to get to that point. Hopefully this will help clear up the chronology of these knives.
Camillus made their 5733 knife from 1957 to 2006. For almost 30 years they made them to Government contract specifications. For the last 22 years they still made the knife, but military personal who had those got them thru other means than being issued them from a normal Government contract.
This tang stamp does signify a Camillus 5733 made after the cancelation of the Government contracts. Camillus 5733 knives made after 3-1985 have pommels with no information stamped on them.
I hope at least some of this may be of help.