Held identifying an Imperial knife Tang Stamp

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GSPTOPDOG
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Held identifying an Imperial knife Tang Stamp

Post by GSPTOPDOG »

I have looked up Imperial tang stamps and I don't see one that looks like this. Can anyone date this Imperial knife Tang Stamp? Any other information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
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Gunsil
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Re: Held identifying an Imperial knife Tang Stamp

Post by Gunsil »

Called an "outers pattern" your knife was likely made during the 1930s. Almost all knife companies except KA-BAR made or sold an almost identical knife with their own marking on it. The first one of these patterns was supposedly in 1926 by Western although some say Marbles and was soon copied and many were sold with many different stamps. I believe yours was actually manufactured by Imperial in Providence, RI, but many are contract knives but nobody knows positively who made the contract knives. I have seen none from the post WW2 era, and no ads from after the war for them so they must have lost popularity after the war.
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Re: Held identifying an Imperial knife Tang Stamp

Post by btrwtr »

I agree with Gunsil's post. This design was used by nearly every knife company that was in the fixed blade market in the brief time that it was produced. It was a low cost and easy to manufacture knife that was very serviceable. It is possible that the low profit involved combined with the WWII demand for military knives lead to it's demise. Companies could make more money taking this out of the sportsman's use equation and offering heavier and more expensive knives for field use. I am unsure of how many brands of this pattern could be found but I would say that 30 or more is not unreasonable. As for the number of manufacturers actually making the knife it would be far less.

As far as I know this Imperial stamp is unique to fixed blade knives.
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Re: Held identifying an Imperial knife Tang Stamp

Post by GSPTOPDOG »

Thank you gentlemen very much! This has been a great help. I apologize for not responding sooner but I did not see a notification of your responses. Checking now I have seen them and I in your debt. This knife has a great feel to being very light yet still solid for it's size and weight. Would you have any idea of the knife's value? Thank you again.
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Re: Held identifying an Imperial knife Tang Stamp

Post by btrwtr »

With the original sheath in the condition shown I would guess in the $50 range to the right buyer.
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