All About Pocket Knives

Picked up this new to me western today overall right at 8 inches..thinking maybe a Bird and Trout model not sure though.

Great looking fixed blade.

Some guy was selling refurbished Westerns on eBay with flashy colored handles and making a ton of .

That's an L48. Since it has a pre-WW2 stamp, it was MOST LIKELY made between 1936, when the L48 first appeared in the 1936 catalog and 1941, during a pre-WW2 run.

I say "MOST LIKELY" because the spacer pattern does not match the depictions of the knife in either the 1936 or 1941 catalogs. I have found that, in general, the catalog pictures actually match the knives as made 99% of the time.

When you have mixed signals from a knife, it's sometimes a guess as to when it was made. When there is a dating discrepancy between the spacer pattern and the ricasso stamp, I always go with the stamp.

The spacer pattern is similar to the pattern of the 1950 L66, L48B and L48C. The 1950 also had the L48A and L48ABG, but those had a pair of white spacers at each end.

One question - is the guard magnetic or non-magnetic?

Nice knife!

The guard is non magnetic, upon looking at the knife in lower light it seems someone engraved their name on the blade..can kind of make out Russell? Possibly not sure..was this a common thing for people to do?

Non-magnetic means that it is probably nickel/silver, occasionally used as guard material pre-WW2.

Names etched on blades is not as frequent as names carved in sheaths, but it happened. Heck, it still happens. There are 2 primary reasons blades from the 1930s to 1950s have names engraved on the blades - Boy Scouts and military.

Some engravings were due to more that one Boy Scout in a troop having the same knife, whether because they all had "official" BSA advertised knives, or because one kid got one and the copycat brigade struck because several of the troop members liked it, or maybe that was all that was available at the local hardware store.

Engraving the owner's name on the blade endured that the right knife got back to the right boy.

Ditto with the military - I have several knives from WW2/Korea/VN that have the owner's name engraved on the blade in efforts to TRY to prevent a knife from growing legs.

ZZ, Are you sure that the OP knife is not a 58?

Not at "about 8 inches" OAL. L48s were 7-7/8 inches, as advertised. The 58s were 9-3/8" OAL.

Thanx, ZZ. Got it. So some had fullers and some did not?

The first 48s in 1936 and 1941 did NOT have fullers. According to 1948 ads, the L48 came with and without "blood grooves" aka fullers. 1949 ads started calling the fullered versions L48ABG.

This advertising difference between 1948 and 1949 L48s vs L48A/L48ABG is why I set the "start date" for the L48A and L48ABG as 1949.

So, how do you tell the difference between a 1948 L48 (with or withour fullers) and a 1949 L48 or L48ABG?

You can't.

They look just the same whether they are 1948 or 1949 (or 1950 - 1953/4).

MAYBE, sommeday someone will run across a pristine set of both versions in bags with receipts dated 1948 and 1949 so that we could see if there were any differences.

Until that unlikely day occurs, we will have to be content with designating ALL L48A/L48ABG patterns that have PAT'D MADE IN USA as the 3rd line of the ricasso stamp as "1948 to1953/54" manufacture.

Since the OP knife simply has PATENTED as the 3rd line, I put it in the pre-WW2 category.

Thanks a lot for all the info! It’s a really well built knife, I just stroped the edge which is convex from prior sharpening and it got scary sharp It will be a great knife to use. Nice blade profile and not to big for my standards..about perfect for a fixed blade IMO.