WESTERN & KABAR BRAND KNIFES

Many different blade-tang stamps were used by Western Cutlery. From the beginning in 1911 pocket knives were stamped in the tang with a curved "Western States" with "Boulder, Colo." straight across the bottom of the curve. Pocket knives were also etched on the blade with buffalo trademark from about 1928 to 1940, or the "SHARP" trademark from 1920 to 1930. Sometime around 1950 the curved West-em States stamp was discontinued on pocket knives and a straight "Western" over a parallel "Boulder, Colo." was adopted. During the 1930's an additional line of pocket knives was marked "Westaco". In 1978, Western moved to Longmont, Colo. and was soon known as Coleman-Western. Beginning and continuing until the mid 1980's, the stamp Western USA was used with a letter beneath the USA to indicate the production year (A=1977; B=1978, etc) Later stampings have been WESTERN/model number/USA. Since 1991, Camillus Cutlery have been making Western knives in their Camillus, NY factory using the WESTERN Cutlery Co, Camillus, NY mark.

The KABAR 1976 Bicentennial trapper featured red, white and blue celluloid handles. One blade was etched Union Cut Co. (an early stamp of Kabar) and the other blade carried the KABAR logo. The knife was presented in a beautiful Red, White and Blue box with a soft white suede pouch. A Certificate of Authenticity with the knife's serial number was enclosed which was signed by the General Manager of the Collectors Division, The signer was the well known KABAR man, Richard "Dick" Strum. There were 7,500 Kabar Dogshead trappers created and the original price was from $30 to $100. However, the current collector's value is much higher for the 30 year old knife....