All About Pocket Knives

First, I apologize if this is in the wrong forum. I don’t want to call anything I am posting counterfeit. I am truly just not sure what is going on and I have legit questions. Looking around this morning on the net, I just started to notice something in several Kabars I was looking at. All of them have dogs head shields. But some are more “defined” than others. Meaning the stamping is different. I know that Kabar has had limited runs of doghead knives since the 70’s and those doghead have an obviously different doghead/stamp.
Looking at the examples below, is it from the knife being used often, over cleaning/polishing, a different die used at the factory, or something completely diffrent? I do not want to call them fakes, because I honestly don’t know and want to learn. Thoughts or insights?

The only one I have looks like this ------
A little Google search turned up these two (like yours)

Good question. I frequently see the dog head shields for sale and also wonder about the same thing. For example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/314108197965?h ... Sw3Jhe~jZS

herbva wrote: ↑Sun Aug 21, 2022 2:42 pm Good question. I frequently see the dog head shields for sale and also wonder about the same thing. For example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/314108197965?h ... Sw3Jhe~jZS

jerryd6818 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 21, 2022 2:08 pm The only one I have looks like this ------

Kabar (Picture Jan '09).jpg
Kabar2.jpg

A little Google search turned up these two (like yours)

vintage-bone-stag-ka-bar-dogs-head_1_b431b8d8686c13acc83baff94a4b46a7.jpg
antique-union-cutlery-ka-bar-dogs_1_44f31db09e2ccf1b518c9a8617c41273.jpg

Jerry, very nice Kabar! That is a prime example of the 70’s era dog heads. I may be wrong (and apologize if I am), but I believe Gunsil refers to these as the “angry dogs” because of the facial expression.

Whitney, those angry dogs on ebay are from the Queen factory sale and were for the KCC knives made by Queen. The two examples you show in your post are correct although different. There were three original dog head shields, one used by Union Cut Co before the KA-BAR brand came about which naturally does not have KA-BAR stamped on it and this shield was also used on the contract knives for Western States. There are two KA-BAR era shields, one with no mouth or eyebrow and the one with a mouth and eyebrow is called the "smiling dog" by some collectors, but to me it doesn't look like a smile. I call them smug or complacent dogs. They also made the modern dogs (angry) right into the 1990s (by Queen), they are not just 70s editions, and Canal Street has made dog head KA-BARs in this century.

Gunsil wrote: ↑Sun Aug 21, 2022 4:47 pm Whitney, those angry dogs on ebay are from the Queen factory sale and were for the KCC knives made by Queen. The two examples you show in your post are correct although different. There were three original dog head shields, one used by Union Cut Co before the KA-BAR brand came about which naturally does not have KA-BAR stamped on it and this shield was also used on the contract knives for Western States. There are two KA-BAR era shields, one with no mouth or eyebrow and the one with a mouth and eyebrow is called the "smiling dog" by some collectors, but to me it doesn't look like a smile. I call them smug or complacent dogs. They also made the modern dogs (angry) right into the 1990s (by Queen), they are not just 70s editions, and Canal Street has made dog head KA-BARs in this century.

Thank you for the information!! That helped to clear up some of those stamps.