All About Pocket Knives

This is my only Boy Scouts of America knife. Of all my knives, I can get this one sharper than any other knife and is my favorite to skin deer with. I have fairly small hand so it fits me well. I wish I could find more knives with this grade of 1095.. Can anyone tell me the approximate year it was made.? The Tang stamp doesn't match exactly with any of the ones that I have been able to find..

Others I’m sure will be along later to pin point the date, but I can tell you it’s pre 1973 because of the Boulder Colorado stamp.

Old western boulder steel was, if not the best, certainly one of the best. From what I have been told by folks in the know, all the old companies basically used the same steel. But they all had their own little recipes as to heat treating. Western in my opinion, did it the best.

The only tang stamps I have ...
It looks like the 1931-50 stamp.

americanedgetech wrote:The only tang stamps I have ...
It looks like the 1931-50 stamp.

Thank you! It's older than I thought!

The difference is yours has "Made in uSA" I think as the third line?

Hang tight for someone that knows more but I'm guessing at 1951-73?

americanedgetech wrote: I'm guessing at 1951-73?

I think so, on that L66. Wait for ZZ.

Tongueriver is right on it being an L66. I put it as being between 1954 and 1960.

While "1951 to 1973" does bracket this one, we can get deduce a significantly narrower time frame.

Since it has no reference to the double tang patent, that puts the earliest it would have been made at 1954/1955.

On the mark side, it has a First Class rank badge stamped parallel to the spine. The BSA shifted from the 1st Class badge to the Tenderfoot badge in 1960 or 1961 depending on the item in question.

These 2 events (dropping the patent reference and badge change) bracket the knife's date of manufacture.

Some other Western BSA tidbits.

The Official BSA knives by Western have the manufacturer's stamps on the pile side, rather than the mark side as is standard. The BSA stamp is on the mark side instead of the Western stamp.

Although Western started putting model numbers on their fixed blades starting in 1954/55, the BSA knives did not have a model number on them until 1968, when Western shifted the model number stamps to the guards. Western used model number stamped guards on the BSAs rather than keeping a separate allocation of unstamped guards.

Someday, I'm gonna get around to finishing up some 3 documents I've been working on about Western fixed blade stamps in general and Western W49 and L/W46-8 bowies specifically.

tongueriver wrote:

americanedgetech wrote: I'm guessing at 1951-73?

I think so, on that L66. Wait for ZZ.

Thanks ToungeRiver! Great info!

You are a GEM ZZY.
I saved that info to my Western file.

zzyzzogeton wrote:Tongueriver is right on it being an L66. I put it as being between 1954 and 1960.

While "1951 to 1973" does bracket this one, we can get deduce a significantly narrower time frame.

Since it has no reference to the double tang patent, that puts the earliest it would have been made at 1954/1955.

On the mark side, it has a First Class rank badge stamped parallel to the spine. The BSA shifted from the 1st Class badge to the Tenderfoot badge in 1960 or 1961 depending on the item in question.

These 2 events (dropping the patent reference and badge change) bracket the knife's date of manufacture.

Some other Western BSA tidbits.

The Official BSA knives by Western have the manufacturer's stamps on the pile side, rather than the mark side as is standard. The BSA stamp is on the mark side instead of the Western stamp.

Although Western started putting model numbers on their fixed blades starting in 1954/55, the BSA knives did not have a model number on them until 1968, when Western shifted the model number stamps to the guards. Western used model number stamped guards on the BSAs rather than keeping a separate allocation of unstamped guards.

Someday, I'm gonna get around to finishing up some 3 documents I've been working on about Western fixed blade stamps in general and Western W49 and L/W46-8 bowies specifically.

I have a an L39 (not a BSA knife) with the model number on the guard that I got in about 1958. So then, would the 1968 date be incorrect???

NOPE. I stand by my statement.

1968 was the first year Western put model numbers on the guard. Specifically stated as part of the 1968 advertising campaign, emphasizing "permanent model numbers stamped into the guard".

While A model came out with marked guards as early as the tail end of 1967 due to stock depletion of ricasso marked blades (specifically, the 3rd generation pre-W49-marked Western Bowie), there is no way that Western started putting a model number on the guards of 1 model 10 years before doing so on everything else.

ALL Western fixed blades made from 1954 through 1967 had the model numbers stamped into the pile side ricasso, including the filet knives.

In 52 years of accumulating/collecting Western fixed blades, other than the above specified Bowie, I have never encountered a single guard marked fixed blade from prior to 1968.

Welp, all I can tell ya is that I have an L39 with the model number stamped on the guard and that it is c. 1958. Tang is stamped WESTERN/Bolder, Colo./U.S.A. JerryD has one just like it. We both got ours at about the same time using a book of trading stamps (S&H Green Stamps, Top Value Stamps or some such). These pics are really bad because I'm taking them inside with incondescent lighting. Though you probably cannot read the L39 stamping, you can see that it is there.

I just love being without inet service for a couple of days. Said no one ever.

I have no explanation for or argument against your info. When I get some free time (ha ha) I'll need to start looking through late 50s magazines in the university collections.

I wonder if anyone ever sells S&H redemption catalogs on fleabay?

For now, I'll stick with 1968 as a start date for guard marks, but include a caveat referencing your knife.

zzyzzogeton wrote: I wonder if anyone ever sells S&H redemption catalogs on fleabay?

Sure do! "Green Stamp Catalog" https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R ... pell_check
This one is 1966...

See here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-WESTER ... SwOgdYy-8k

And here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Wester ... SwAHtZ8n4q

Both are L39's stamped on the guard and have the same tang stamp as mine (which also seems to be a mystery). I ask JerryD about his and his is stamped on the ricasso like you said. He claims his is 1957 and has the same tang stamp as mine.

Up until this time, I had not considered that stamp to be a mystery.

That 3-line stamp

WESTERN
over
Boulder Colo
over USA

is the stamp I have always associated with the "first model number stamped" knives, 1955 to 1967, the ones with the model number stamped on the pile side ricasso. Except for the L46-8 "Big 8" knives. They always had to be just a little different.

It is the stamp that appears on the first fixed blade my grandfather ever gave me, an L46-5 he bought in August 1965.

I just checked the most recent "1955-1967" L39 I got in about 3 weeks ago. Looks just like yours.

So now we have several conundrums to puzzle out -

- When did guard stamps really first come out?
- Did the 1957/58 L39s have a stamped guard as an experiment?
- and did it go away until 1968 again? (This because there are pile side ricasso L39s.)


The answers to these and other questions may remain undiscovered for a while, if not forever.

zzyzzogeton wrote:Up until this time, I had not considered that stamp to be a mystery.

That 3-line stamp

WESTERN
over
Boulder Colo
over USA

is the stamp I have always associated with the "first model number stamped" knives, 1955 to 1967, the ones with the model number stamped on the pile side ricasso. Except for the L46-8 "Big 8" knives. They always had to be just a little different.

It is the stamp that appears on the first fixed blade my grandfather ever gave me, an L46-5 he bought in August 1965.

I just checked the most recent "1955-1967" L39 I got in about 3 weeks ago. Looks just like yours.

So now we have several conundrums to puzzle out -

- When did guard stamps really first come out?
- Did the 1957/58 L39s have a stamped guard as an experiment?
- and did it go away until 1968 again? (This because there are pile side ricasso L39s.)


The answers to these and other questions may remain undiscovered for a while, if not forever.

Or did your source contain a "typo" Anyway, made my point and I can now sleep at night. I only called the stamp a mystery because none of the stamp charts show it.