HUNTER'S & COKEBOTTLE'S (Pre 60s)

[stockman]

Kevin Goin’s, some don't agree with this date.

Harold

[stockman]

Kevin you have a nice knife different tang stamp from mine. I would not worry about your knife. Enjoy it. Harold

[RalphAlsip]

Thanks Harold. Or if that’s a pain just let me know what it says. If ours are the same maybe one of the gurus can help us pin down a closer mfg date. But some knives all you can get is a range. Kevin

If you are expecting to learn that your knife was produced on October 12, 1926 at 3:00 PM by an employee named Sam Jones, you are very likely to be disappointed. As far as I know, those types of records do not exist.

This link will take you to a description of Union/Ka-Bar tangs stamps and approximately when they were used.
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=56208&p=633734#p633734

The documentation found at this link corroborates what Harold stockman provided, which is that the tang stamp on your knife was used between 1923 and 1952 - a span of 30 years. My personal opinion is that your knife was made closer to 1923 than 1952. Because 1938 is the mid-point between 1923 and 1952, one could also say my opinion is between 1923 and 1938.

Starting in 1970, Case started using "dot" system in their tang stamps that identifies the specific year of manufacture. As far as I know, this is the first instance of a knife manufacturer marking their knives in a way that would identify year of manufacture.

[Kevin11b]

Thanks Ralph and Harold for all the time you have given me and yes thanks to harolds pic I could see that the tang stamp sets the dates you have stated. No Ralph that wasn’t what I expected I would have also liked to have known sams middle name!! I tend to be overly detail oriented like I suspect most knife and coin type guys are. Not an American knife maker but puma has done an excellent job dating its knives since the mid sixties. 1923-38 really cool Thanks again to you both

[Kevin11b]

And....I want Harold’s knife !