Have You Seen One Of These?

[KLJ77]

I came across this interesting tidbit and thought I'd post this bit of history for those who are collecting the Buck 703 Colt or may have one of the older models. Do you have the 'single' dot on your sheepsfoot? Do you have the 1992 Buck 110 with the dashes? Do you have the 2003 Buck 110 with the 'T' marked on the back of the blade? What about your 1987, 2003 or 2013 Buck 110's? Check your knives, Buck collectors...you might just have one of these unusually stamped (or no stamp) knives.

The below excerpts were taken from a news letter from BCCI: All excerpts credited to Joe Houser, Buck Historian.

"Most avid Buck Knife collectors are familiar with Buck’s date code system which started in 1986. Each blade has a small symbol stamped, usually right after the model number, to identify which year the blade was made. Well there are blade stampings out there that you might run into, that don’t show up on the date code charts. I thought it would be a good idea to mention a few of them here so as to get the word out. Let’s start with the model 703 Colt. Did you know that back in late 1986, and or early 1987, the Sheepsfoot blade on the 703 could be found with a single dot? It turns out that they were testing a 441 stainless steel on that blade and there were about 4800 knives made and marked with the single dot. I’ve never seen one, but have an internal document which talks about it."

"I’m sure you know about the 1992 110 with a dash after AND before the model number?"

"What about the 2003 110 with the date code mark, a capital letter T, marked on the back of the blade instead of on the stamp side after the model number? Back in 2003 one of Buck’s long time engineers did a run of about 6,000 blades stamped like this to identify a run of blades that went through a slightly different process than normal. It wasn’t a major or identifiable change and that is why they needed to be unique in some visual way. All other 110’s made that year have the date code mark after the model number but if you’re lucky enough to find one with it on the back, that’s a nice find!"


"I may have mentioned the 110 blade with the 1987 date code mark and a dot? 110*> I have no idea what that one was about and the dot is not the same shape as dots seen on earlier 110’s. I also have a 112 nickel silver finger groove with an odd looking fibron wood inlay, that is stamped with the 1987 mark and 2 dots before and one after the model number. **112>* My only thought is that they discovered some 4 dot 112 blades in 1987, softened them up, stamped the 1987 mark over the dots, obliterating one of them, then reheat treated them and called it good. That’s a long shot, but you never know...and likely we will never know for sure!"

"Of course there was the time; I believe it was the beginning of 2013, when the person in charge of getting new stamp blocks for the shop forgot to! To be honest, I don’t really know what happened other than the fact that the shop ended up having to stamp all blades with stamps that did not have a date code mark on them at all. It was an Oops for sure, and you can imagine the confusion it causes when a collector finds a nice and new, modern 110, with NO date code mark at all. Most production models made that year can be found with and without a date code mark."

[edge213]

Thanks for posting.
I will add this to my Buck dating information.

[eveled]

I have one of the no stamp 110’s. I was not aware of the other oddities.

Figures it happened in 2013. 13 being unlucky and all.

With a lifetime warantee. I have often wondered why mark them with a date at all? For that matter why not use the actual year?

[eveled]

No date stamp

[bertl]

I have one of the no stamp 110’s. I was not aware of the other oddities.

Figures it happened in 2013. 13 being unlucky and all.

With a lifetime warantee. I have often wondered why mark them with a date at all? For that matter why not use the actual year?

I think the date code is important for warranty work and matching parts for a particular knife. Some minor changes aren't visible just looking at the knife.

Bert

[Baykeeper]

Thanks for posting this, I love historical manufacturing tidbits like this.

[EWMailman]

Thanks indeed. Really interesting stuff.

[Railsplitter]

Very interesting indeed. I don’t know how I missed this thread but I’m going to have to check my 703’s.

I have two of them from 1986. One two spring and one three spring. Gonna have to take a closer look at that three spring.

[Railsplitter]

Nope, no dots on either of mine but the suspense was fun while it lasted.

Just for fun, here are my two 1986 703's. You can tell which is the three spring in this first pic because when Buck added the third spring they also swapped the positions of the Sheepsfoot and Spey blades. The three spring is the bottom knife.

If you look closely you can see the extra spring on the bottom knife as well as the 1986 date codes on each knife. The transition from two springs to three springs was done sometime in 1986.