Interesting Winchester "factory second" knives

[knifeaholic]

I bought these two 1920-40 era WINCHESTER knives in the same week at two different outdoor flea markets. Unusual because I have never seen any company from that era mark their factory second knives like this. Normally they would just lightly grind off the tang stamps. These knives each still have the full tang stamp, with 2ND stamped on the back tang of each master blade.

[1967redrider]

Very interesting, thanks, Steve. I wonder if they weren't heat treated properly and that's why they were 2nd?

[msteele6]

I have an old Winchester marked the same way. It's a 2975 with a punch Patd 4/7/08. The "Winchester" is ground off the master tang, however it's still marked on the secondary. The back of the main tang has the pattern number 2975 with "2nd" stamped over and partially obscuring it. I''ve seen the name Napanoch attached to this style of punch and the jigging style looks like an early one to me, not the later Roger's bone-like jigging. I think the patents ran for 17 years at the time so it would have expired in 1925.