All About Pocket Knives

I picked this up a a pawn shop today. Wasn’t taken care of but is tight and smooth after a good cleaning/oiling. I have researched and found a lot of good info on this site about these knives. I believe I have an old shield and also the etch while barely visible is definetly a two eye with the words premium quality hammer forged in between. The only part that confuses me is I do not see a tang stamp at all on either blade. Anyone have any idea why that is or if that dates it into a certain time frame? Thank you for any information.

The covers are celluloid rather than Delrin, if that helps dating it.

Have you looked at tang with a 9-10x loupe ? A light stamping that has worn down can be hard to see.
kj

kootenay joe wrote:Have you looked at tang with a 9-10x loupe ? A light stamping that has worn down can be hard to see.
kj

I have not looked under magnification no. I was also wondering if maybe it had worn off considering the etch is almost gone but the tang area doesn’t look worn enough to me to completely remove any sign of a stamp.

Was waiting to see if some of the other Eye Brand enthusiasts would offer an observation here. My thought is that maybe this knife actually made it through the production and finishing processes without a tang stamp. If that’s the case it’s certainly not common. Doesn’t seem worth the effort to try to file or modify the tang stamp of this knife in order to represent it as something other than what it is. It’s a nice older Eye Brand trapper. Maybe add it to your stash and enjoy having found it.

Joe D.

I was also biding my time on this one. Without a closeup and in focus look at the tang, it is all pretty much guess manship. I can tell you the the shield is 'old style'. I suspect the tang stamp is worn down or worn off and I'd bet (guess) it was a straight line stamp. I haven't ever seen an Eye get out without a tang stamp, at least that I can recall.
Whichever, it will be a nice old user and an edge-holding son-of-a-gun.

Ray

Paladin wrote:I was also biding my time on this one. Without a closeup and in focus look at the tang, it is all pretty much guess manship. I can tell you the the shield is 'old style'. I suspect the tang stamp is worn down or worn off and I'd bet (guess) it was a straight line stamp. I haven't ever seen an Eye get out without a tang stamp, at least that I can recall.
Whichever, it will be a nice old user and an edge-holding son-of-a-gun.

Ray

Thank you for the info. Here’s another picture after doing some more cleaning. I’ll get a closeup tang shot too.