All About Pocket Knives

Hey, Folks, first post here!

I have a rekindled an interest in Western fixed-blade knives recently, and I note that there seems to be a lot more information available than when I was looking year ago!

Based on a TON of lurking, I have put together a field chart that helps me date Western knives when I'm out looking.

Some holes in my chart:

• I have an L88 with no mark or pile side stampings, but only has
  WESTERN
  U.S.A
  L88
  ...stamped on the guard only

• An L71 Seabee knife that only has
  Western
  U.S.A. 71
  on the mark side, no other stampings. Blade is not blued like the L71 in the '86 catalog, appears to be stainless. Doesn't seem like Camillus would have made this.

• A Westmark 703 (stag handle) with serial number 900415, which seems way higher than anything I've seen.

Didn't bother with pictures, these are pretty standard models in this line.

I believe ZZY is still working on serial lists for the 702/703 Westmarks, and hope to see that at some point. But the others have me a little stumped, and wondering if they might be later production, sometime around the time Coleman turned the business over to the folks in Camillus (the early 90's?). More knowledge than I have!

Thanks for any input,

Scottie

Welcome Scotty. Looks like you have a lot to contribute here. J.O'.

JO,

Hope so... What I lack in experience I can hopefully make up for in doing a load of digging. zzyzzogeton and a few others seem to be the main authorities in the Western knife area, and I've tried to distill that info into a useable and general spreadsheet/cheatsheet that I can use when out in the wild looking at knives.

That sheet is nowhere near ready for posting, but making progress!

Scottie

swaler61 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 03, 2024 5:19 am Hey, Folks, first post here!

I have a rekindled an interest in Western fixed-blade knives recently, and I note that there seems to be a lot more information available than when I was looking year ago!

Based on a TON of lurking, I have put together a field chart that helps me date Western knives when I'm out looking.

Some holes in my chart:

• I have an L88 with no mark or pile side stampings, but only has
  WESTERN
  U.S.A
  L88
  ...stamped on the guard only

• An L71 Seabee knife that only has
  Western
  U.S.A. 71
  on the mark side, no other stampings. Blade is not blued like the L71 in the '86 catalog, appears to be stainless. Doesn't seem like Camillus would have made this.

• A Westmark 703 (stag handle) with serial number 900415, which seems way higher than anything I've seen.

Didn't bother with pictures, these are pretty standard models in this line.

I believe ZZY is still working on serial lists for the 702/703 Westmarks, and hope to see that at some point. But the others have me a little stumped, and wondering if they might be later production, sometime around the time Coleman turned the business over to the folks in Camillus (the early 90's?). More knowledge than I have!

Thanks for any input,

Scottie

The L 88 I believe would be dated from 1973-1976 .1973 being the year boulder Colorado was dropped from all the tang stampings .1976 was the last year model # s were stamped on the knife guards .

The L71 is a Camillus product.

Other than being a newer knife and no year code date, on Camillus knives, the second line reads "U.S.A. Model No." Western and Coleman Western knives read "Model No. U.S.A."

The L88 is a 1973-1976 knife. Reference to BOULDER, COLO. was dropped after 1972 and guard stamping was dropped starting in 1977 when the date code letters were introduced.

Thanks for the input!

Main question on the L88 was just because I had never seen "Western", "U.S.A." and a model all marked on a guard before.

Regarding :

on Camillus knives, the second line reads "U.S.A. Model No." Western and Coleman Western knives read "Model No. U.S.A."

I'm definitely confused on this, as all Westerns and Westmarks I've seen (with a model on the mark side ricasso) appear to use the "U.S.A. [Model]" format for the 2nd line, and have never seen any with a "[Model] U.S.A." order. I've yet more digging to do, then...

In looking through the Camillus catalogs of the era, they already have a serious legacy of their own repro military lines, seems weird that they would bother making one of Western's Seabee knives, but I'm not a marketer, so who knows. If they figured it would sell, they would make it, yes?

I was interested in the L71 as my Dad was a Seabee in the early 50's, but don't remember him ever talking about having a knife like this, so maybe just issued during WW2. As it happens, my son and I each have one of these L71s, in identical shape.

So would the 703 with that high of a serial likely have to be from Camillus?

Thank you,

Scottie

Update:

In looking through the Camillus catalogs of the era

I stand corrected, as I didn't go far enough! In the Western section of the 1996 Camillus catalog, the WL71 Seabee knife is listed. That's the only reference I found, doesn't look like it was around very long. FWIW, a good basic 440 stainless knife, and I'll put it to good use.

Thanks!

Scott

From basic knowledge, the Westmark 703 with a stag handle and a 90xxxx serial number was not made during the Western/Coleman-Western eras. No stag handled 70X knives were made for official sale. IF, and it is a big IF, the knife was made in BouIder or Longmont, it would have been a really, really, really one-off.


A picture of the overall knife and of the stamp would be needed for a more definitive opinion.


With respect to all other Westmark knives. if the model is NOT a 701/702/703, it was not made by Western or Coleman Western. All other model knives were made by someone for Smokey Mountain Knife Works after SMKW got the IP from Camillus.

Here's the mark side: Pile side: I don't have an overall pic just yet, will try to get one tonight, but it may be tomorrow.

Scottie

An overall picture: Did some quick looking on ebay, and three other 703s similar to this have sold recently: 900107, 900185, and 900222

I also know of a non-commemorative 701 with this type of handle, serial 28328.

Scott

The Westmark stamp looks right.

Looking at your knife, a bell rang in the back of my brain.

I forgot that in 1984, Coleman-Western made special stag handled 701s to commemorate taking over Western. Those were sold in a wood/glass display case. The knives had black and gold spacers, special engraving on the blade and a serial number stamped in the guard. Supposedly, there were only 2000 made but the highest serial number I have seen was in the 1400s.

Really a brain fart on my part since I have 2 of them - #1478 and #0478

Going back into my archives, I found that at some point, Western/Coleman-Western made some stag handled 703s. The serial numbers were like yours - starting with a leading 900. The 9001xx to at least 900222 had black and red spacers. Sometime between 900222 and your 900415, the red spacer was thinned and 2 pair of brass spacers added.

I have a query out to my long-time Western employee online friend about the stag 703s.

I always like when I can come up with a reasonably good question, and hopefully I have with this thread. Thanks for digging, but sorry to keep you up late last night, though!

You're used to looking at spacer patterns, and I sure didn't notice that, good catch.

I'm not personally interested in those commemorative 701s in display cases, but I know someone locally with a couple of them. I mentioned the non-commemorative stag-handle 701 my son has, and haven't found any others like that online for comparison. Still don't have a pic of it as yet. I do know that its serial # is slightly high and off the end of the 701 serial listing you posted last year.

Thanks again, and it'll be interesting to see what your guy has to say.

Scottie

So speaking of 701s... Here's the non-commemorative stag 701 in question, serial 28328. The spacer setup looks the same as the commemorative ones that I've seen from 1984, but the serial would put it just off the end of the 701 serial list posted a few months ago. So, maybe sometime in 1987, as a guess.

I note that the rivets used in the stag 1984 ones are countersunk a bit, different than the more flush ones on the 90xxxx 703s.

Scott

Just got word back from my Western employee friend. He said that the 900xxx serial numbers would most likely have been for a limited edition or a private run.

ZZY,

Sounds good, thanks for checking!

Scott

Stag handled spacer detail pics from messages above: L-R: Westmark 701 28328; Westmark 703 900222; Westmark 703 900415

Scott