All About Pocket Knives

Can you put a date to a knife?
My Marlin spike model has the release lever for the spike and on the blade Schrade Walden N.Y. U.S.A. stainless.
The handles are a reddish brown with a jigged pattern,two small brass pins on each end and silver pins close together in the center.
The handles have shrunk,does this mean it's an older knife?Does the stainless blade mean a newer knife?
It is very confusing.

For those that know (not me) there is more to dating a knife than just the tang stamp. Pictures please.

This chart may give you a ballpark idea.

Without seeing a picture the only thing I can say for sure is the Schrade Walden tang stamp was used from 1947-1973.
That is as close as I would feel comfortable in dating it without seeing pictures of the knife, handles and the tang stamp.

Thanks, don't know if it matters but the word stainless is under N.Y. U.S.A. on the knife blade.Just a different stamp as the old one wore out.

Does the spike have a lock or not, and is there a pattern number on the back of the blade? The non locking versions (735) were made prior to the locking versions (735L) They all had stainless steel blades, and most had that reddish black stagged handle that was prone to shrinkage.

http://www.allaboutpocketknives.com/sch ... _stock.php

The years of production can be found in this link, here on this website.

Thank you Thawk.
The knife has a lever at the end that says spike release on one side and press down with an arrow on the other.
There is no pattern number that I can see,so I guess this model is the 735L.
There is some wobble in the spike,more so when closed than open,is there any way to fix this or shouldn't I worry about it?