O.K. Joe....boy you guys really get my spider web brain thinking! But that's good!!
I'll take the text questions first, then corrispond to the pics...Your right about the early Cub Hunter and the plastic handle arrived in the late 60's. That bone handled earlyier model, probably early 40's with the originall card in tackJoe.......is VERY rare and VERY valuable...you know as well as I..
The second batch of Stag head hunters is interesting. This was our # H-1 Hunter and back then our family's inculing Imperial ( the Mirando's and the fIzzono's) and my grandfather and his brothers DID share very similar handle materials, design and they probably bought the sheaths from the same local company. The Imperial hunter is older and made from leather where as the Colonial had a Viynle sheath. As I can see the Imperial hunter on the right has a lighter tone of stain and this is because we bought the same raw handles from the same molder's back then and we would apply our own stain, as Imperial did! (forgive my Vynle spelling)!!
I'm sure you understand Joe and friends back in the early days when two very large knife manufacturing plants located 3 miles from each other, especially cousins, they shared many things back the, like Joe says..
Finally, our # 77 cork floating knife with Capn' Al on the card was probably a family joke, since there were about seven Al's at Colonial!!
One more item I'd like to touch on was our old hatchet!! These were quite sturdy, with a full tang and pretty Nice steel back then, 1095 I think with a high polish!
One more detail...Colonial ALWAYS stamped the tangs on the front...always..
Thanks for the walk down memory lane Joe, now I'm going for a Martini!!
Did I miss anything??? remind me later..Bobby P. "Cutler 4-Ever"