It's My Story & I'm Sticking To It

[deo-pa]

This 4" closed KA-BAR 3-blade stockman with Christmas tree handles arrived yesterday from Lee (aka My Historical Knives). Main blade is KA-BAR over OLEAN N.Y. but the secondary blades are OL CUT over UCC over OLEAN N.Y.

My guess is this knife is early 1920s when the KA-BAR brand was introduced but yet there were still blades around the factory from the Olean Cutlery Co. (closed in 1914) and the Union Cutlery Co. days. Does that explanation make sense?

Dennis

[edge213]

I'm very curious as to what the experts have to say about this.

[peanut740]

Union moved to Olean in 1914, but they probably didn't waste any parts that were left over.Is it a possible parts knife.The kick on the master blade appears ground down about flush with the blade.Also 2 blades have standard nail nicks and the other blade is long pull matchstrike.When I see celluloid in excellent condition on an old knife I get a little nervous.

[deo-pa]

Yes Peanut you may well be right; the ground-down kick seems to point that way.

How about the matter of "OL CUT" and "UCC" being together on the stamp? I was surprised at that because weren't their knives branded separately? Why would both marks be on the same tang?

Occam's razor says the simplest explanation is usually right and I'm having to jump through a lot of hoops about companies using another's blades after a buyout, adding UCC to an OL CUT tang, and so on. You're right, I think I should just declare this a parts knife.

I should chalk this up to the education of a knife collector and my failure to cast a critical eye on knife discrepancies. I bet I'm the only guy on this forum who's ever done that.

Dennis

[knifeaholic]

I agree with Roger, cobbled knife, though I think the handles/frame are legit Kabar as I have owned several Ka-Bar stock knives with identical handles/frames.

Looks to me like the two small blades may be original to the frame, with the main clip a replacement from another knife. Legit Ka-Bar but cobbled.

Its not uncommon to see a stockman with long pull on the main blade and regular pull on the secondary blades, but regular pull on the main and long pull on the secondarys is a red flag IMO.