Western Boulder Colorado pearl handle.

[tongueriver]

I think the answer is pretty simple, someone used an extra black spacer instead of a white one when they assembled the knife.
It may be that it was done in error or they may have put some of them together that way for a while.
Either way, I don't think it significantly effects the value of the knife.

I believe that in some time frames at Western, now lost information, probably, Different color combinations of the spacers were indicators of year of manufacture, although this is hear-say, and I can't remember where I read it.
Western made a small number of those #39 pattern knives back in the (1950s?) that had tungsten or tungsten carbide treatment of one side of the blade, and one would only sharpen the softer side. With the correct box, one of these was sold last year for quite a lot of money. I believe that Schrade did the same experiment about the same time. Neither venture caught on. It would be easy to see whether one had one of those; it would stand out as odd.
The #39 pattern was one of the biggest sellers by several companies back in the day. For Western, it was also the pattern which they based their "changer" knife/hatchet combo on, and I think those all had the cracked ice celluloid.

[PigSticker]

I believe I read about dating Western's in an issue of Blade World back in the early 90's the spacers do date them prior to the Coleman days that's why you see so many different spacer combinations

[Dragunski]

It's a nice knife, but you're a little optimistic thinking you can triple your money on it. The one on Ebay is still sitting at 24, and yours has a nasty grind mark on it. As Orvet said, it only hurts the value more if you grind it down.

I would keep it and use it. It's worth just about what you paid.

[tongueriver]

I think you could safely add 50-75 percent if it says "Western States" instead of just "Western". It's an older stamp and highly sought after by collectors.

The fixed blade knives made by Western States between 1928 (when they started making their own fixed blades) and when they stopped using the Western States tang stamp NEVER were stamped Western States. That stamp was reserved for their folding knives. Platts, in his book on the subject, says his company stopped using Western States on their paperwork in 1941 or 1942. Some other source, widely quoted, says the company was Western States until 1951. That is hardly likely, and especially since the same source gives 1911 as the beginning of Western knives. Platts states that they never even had a building until 1918, when the War was over. I do however have a knife made in the Eastern U.S. and wholesaled to Western, before their own bifurcated tang knives were begun to be manufactured. It has WESTERN stamped on the 'left' side, and WESTERN STATES/CUT.CO.DISTR./BOULDER,CO. stamped on the 'right' side. It is the only Western States knife I have ever seen with a WESTERN STATES tang stamp. It was not made by them; it was made FOR them. In other words, the word 'STATES' did not ever appear on their fixed-blade knives. With the immensely informative book by Platts, THE KNIFE MAKERS WHO WENT WEST, the pre-war knives can be identified with "some" accuracy. The original poster's knife was built in the 1950s, incidently.

[knife-nut]

I have had several Western miniature sheath knives with the western states tang stamp. Maybe an exception to the rule. The first three on the left side in the picture are stamped Western States in a arch. Usually this is the only pattern of their miniatures that were stamped. Most of the rest have no tang stamp. Some times you can find one with the Western States etch on the blade. The only way to know they were Westerns is that they were shown in "Knife Makers that went west". Mark

[tongueriver]

knife-nut, thank you for clarifying! Learned something today!