Camillus knife batch...

[CheckSix]

Need some help with these... my Camillus knowledge is weak..... but these seem to be harder to figure out age, timeframe and so forth. As I understand it, 4 Line stamps are the oldest, then there is Short Line, Long Line but then there is No Line. I think Short Line is older than Long Line? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

So, the first picture is two 4 Line knives, one on the left and the center one that is black scaled. No pattern numbers on these two... The one on the left looks like Rogers bone and a Swell End pattern. The black knife looks to be a Swell End Jack and it has flat bolsters.

The knife on the right is a Short Line tang stamp Cattle knife. The pattern # mark is 70.

The photos of the tang stamps are also included, to see if they provide any clues.

[kootenay joe]

Man, those are nice knives !
The very oldest Camillus stamp is a 3 line but is almost never seen. The 4 line began before WW I and goes to just after WW II ? This is approximate. With the 3 line i don't try to follow all the variations but try to 'read the knife'; does it look to be an older style ? or more recent ? can sometimes be read. Shields too. The sweet little heart shaped shield on the bone Jack is 'older' so i'd put that one into earlier rather than later, 4 line times.
Blades were made in batches and tang stamped and put into bins to be extracted as knives were being built. Some blades waited 20 or more years for their turn to get into a knife. So cannot rely entirely on tang stampings.
kj

[CheckSix]

Man, those are nice knives !
The very oldest Camillus stamp is a 3 line but is almost never seen. The 4 line began before WW I and goes to just after WW II ? This is approximate. With the 3 line i don't try to follow all the variations but try to 'read the knife'; does it look to be an older style ? or more recent ? can sometimes be read. Shields too. The sweet little heart shaped shield on the bone Jack is 'older' so i'd put that one into earlier rather than later, 4 line times.
Blades were made in batches and tang stamped and put into bins to be extracted as knives were being built. Some blades waited 20 or more years for their turn to get into a knife. So cannot rely entirely on tang stampings.
kj

kj,
Thanks for the insight! These are some beauties! Never occurred to me that blades sat around unused with stamps already on them. I guess my manufacturing experience is too recent. I started in the 70's in manufacturing and we did things a certain way to maintain lot integrity and traceability. Guess back then, they did things more for convenience.