Any insight on the history would help!

[Ddkey87]

I suppose I'll start with a little back story. I started a little hobby about a year ago restoring old blades or redesigning cheap ones. Just as a reason to keep the hands busy I guess. And in doing so I've come across a couple beautiful gems. A friend of mine used to collect knives asore of a childish fancy for sharp objects and has recently started giving me knives or swords to renew, remodel, refurbish ECT. He gave me one the other day that, at first sight, looked worn down, rusted and at the end of its day but had a great blade and sharp edge still. Sad to say, I was rough with it at first, trying to remove the already chipped handle so i could restore the blade more thoroughly and replace the handle, like I usually do. But I decided to stop and sand the blade first for what ever reason made me decide to. What I found I wasnt entirely ready for nor can I find much more info than the manufacturing date. On one side it's stamped 'Union Cutlery Co. Olean, N.Y.' and on the other 'KA-BAR Reg. US. Pat. Off.' and on the handle just under the bone handle is a four digit number that I'm still trying to clear up without losing but looks like 9-699....I've been searching for some clue as to its model 'name' or a more precise year ig was made. Any information helps. And I'm asking for curiosity hoping if I were to show the knife off, id at least understand what it was haha

[Gunsil]

Cool old knife, sad condition. You are reading the numbers upside down. It is a model 659-6, model name was "Pistol Grip" in the old KA-BAR catalogs. The first 6 stands for bone, they also came in stag as model 259. The fourth number, the -6 is for the blade length which was actually 5&1/2". They came in 4&1/2' blades also and only in jigged bone or stag scales. This model was one of the first hunting knives from Union Cut Co and were made before the use of the KA-BAR name which began in 1923 and continued into the early KA-BAR years. The model was discontinued by the early 1930s so this one was made between 1923 and circa 1930. These are one of Union Cut's odder knife styles and they made some fine but odd styled knives. In mint condition they are quite sought after and hard to find. By the way, yours has steel mounts, some had nickel silver mounts and are maybe a little nicer looking. Anything else?

[Ddkey87]

@ Gunsil

Thank you so much for the time and information. That's actually more than I'd hoped to find after several hours of research with no reward. You're very correct about sad condition. It's painful to see such abuse on it but it still shines as a newfound treasure to me and having more of its history makes it that much sweeter. Do you have any tips on restoration or is the damage done and better left alone? Other than that, you've given me exactly what I was looking for!

[Ddkey87]

@ Gunsil

Thank you so much for the time and information. That's actually more than I'd hoped to find after several hours of research with no reward. You're very correct about sad condition. It's painful to see such abuse on it but it still shines as a newfound treasure to me and having more of its history makes it that much sweeter. Do you have any tips on restoration or is the damage done and better left alone? Other than that, you've given me exactly what I was looking for!

[Gunsil]

Personally I would leave it as is. It is an old survivor and although it hasn't survived in mint condition it still deserves respect. The blade is amazingly full and it looks like rust neglect was a problem. The missing piece from the handle scale is hard to fix without replacing the whole scale but it could be done. If you remove the rust by sanding you will make an already thin blade thinner and will remove all traces of the already faint model number on the back bolster. Mind you, not all of them had the model number on the back bolster but to me having shiny bolsters and a pitted blade would look odd.