smokepole wrote: I don't know if it's true, but it looks to me that some of the Camco's are very very close to as well finished as their Camillus brothers - and this is one of them
I think it is true, depending on the time frame of the knives in comparison.
I think the Camco TL-29s of the 1950s were even better finished than some of the Camillus branded TL-29s that came out in the last couple years they were in business.
You kind of have compare apples to apples; i.e. Camillus knives against the Camco knives made in the same years. Unlike the Camillus stamps I have noticed very few variations of the Camco tang stamp. While it is unreliable at best to attempt to date a Camillus by tang stamp it is impossible to get a meaningful date to use for comparison with Camco. Dating of Camco tang stamps goes something like this: CAMCO/U.S.A. = 1946-2007. It doesn’t give us a useful tool for comparison.
All that being said; I think if we could compare a Camco stockman, a Camillus stockman and a Sword Brand Camillus all made the same year I think we would see three distinct levels of quality, materials and craftsmanship.