All About Pocket Knives

Recently acquired these and am pleased, love it. Near mint condition, unused hatchet I believe. Ka-bar USA would be early 50s? From what I have found online the sheath had KABAR printed on it but I don't find it on mine. Does anyone know where it would have been? Thanks.

Very Nice

Harold

Western started making a similar 3 piece unit in 1936, so I would assume Kabar's offering is from the same time frame.

It’s a stunning set. Very nice!

Nice one Dan! Yours was made late 1940s-1951 or 52 when the mark changed to Kabar lower case italicized. This model is correct with an unmarked sheath, I don't think you will find a mark. KA-BAR did not make the stag version until the post war years, the pre-war ones were also marked Union Cutlery Co and only came with celluloid or wood handle scales.

Very nice! I love seeing that sort of old-world stag from the 1940s-60s.

Gunsil wrote:Nice one Dan! Yours was made late 1940s-1951 or 52 when the mark changed to Kabar lower case italicized. This model is correct with an unmarked sheath, I don't think you will find a mark. KA-BAR did not make the stag version until the post war years, the pre-war ones were also marked Union Cutlery Co and only came with celluloid or wood handle scales.

As usual thank you for the information.

Thanks everyone. This set is so cool!!!

Beautiful set and just great stag!

What's better than one Kabar USA hatchet/knife combo....TWO COMBOS!!!

I had someone tell me about the box and thought it might fit my hatchet, it does but I don't know if it's original....any input?

Very nice sets Dan, the old stag is just fantastic!

Beautiful sets and box! Almost looks as if the black number on the box is 471 in part. 471 would be a hunting knife pattern used by KA-BAR, Gunsil might be able to decipher what the box held.

Here's my interpretation of the writing on the box ---

The red "47" on the top face of the box is an inventory number, i.e., "Box 47".

The "IAI" over "6 superscript 50" is the unit retail price of $6.50 assigned by the merchant and and the wholesale price in code so the merchant knows what he had in the item in the event he wanted to dicker or for inventory purposes. Back in the day, merchants would use code words/phrases that had 10 unique characters, where each character was assigned a value of 0 to 9. 50 years later I still remember that my father's code was "SMARTYDUCK" FOR 0123456789.

B15 on the end flap is what Kabar stamped on the box prior to it leaving the factory, with the 47 being a repeat of the inventory number and the 1/4 being a quarter dozen or 3 knives in the box. The slash through the "1/4" may indicate that box was empty, again an inventory mechanism.

If you read old (1920s, 1930s) wholesale catalogs, many items were listed with prices by the dozen, half dozen and occasionally by the quarter dozen.

Thanks everyone

zzyzzogeton wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2020 6:00 am Back in the day, merchants would use code words/phrases that had 10 unique characters, where each character was assigned a value of 0 to 9. 50 years later I still remember that my father's code was "SMARTYDUCK" FOR 0123456789.

We also used that in the parts department of the dealer I worked for to indicate the cost price on a sales receipt, and ours was, BLACK HORSE for numbers 1 through 0.

I've posted this before I think but here goes anyway:a Keenwell knife/ax combo. Keenwell was a secondary brand of Union Cutlery.