All About Pocket Knives

My wife gave me this Imperial knife her dad used to carry. It's a typical shell handle, with the black covers showing a lot of cracking. Looking at the tang stamp, it has Ireland beneath, but it looks like they used the numeral 1 instead on an I.

Has anyone ever seen a similar typo on as tang stamp? You'd think it would be kinda rare, but maybe nobody cared much on a bargain knife and things like this were allowed to slide.

-Ed

Sometimes a tang stamp does not go deep into the metal making a clear stamp.
This can be caused by a old and worn stamp.
I think that is probably what happened in this case.

Thanks for the reply, Orvet. I have to agree, got out the 30x magnifier and see it's probably a bit of corrosion that makes it look like the tip off a 1.

-Ed