The escutcheon plate posts in this line are intended to provide rationale for the dating of the 3-7 Delrin handled knife. Soon, I'll break out the escutcheon posts into a separate line. But before that here is one more escutcheon data point.
Into every theory about vintage Randalls a little anomaly must fall. Here is a knife that would be regarded as very early '60s at first glance. It appears in Hunts
Randall Military Models under the
"Carried Knives" section, p. 170. Unfortunately, the owner of this field knife was KIA on August 8, 1972. The book notes that the knife is now the property of collector, Evan Nappen.
Here is what Hunt writes about this knife:
"As collectors we recognize the knife as a Model 1 with eight-inch blade and an ebony handle with nickel silver nameplate where his initials are prominently scrolled...
"...Note the seven-spacer arrangement at the brass guard and the rear spacer stack. The blade grind appears to be very early 1960s..."
We do not know who this soldier was. He could have been a long-time vet who acquired his knife a decade before. Certainly the knife was custom made for him with his name on the blade and initials on the plate. The sheath is definitely post-1963 while the blade stamp is a type-1 pre-1966.
I would speculate that this knife was made late 50s-early '60s. This was a time of slow sales for Randall fighters. I suspect this knife was dusted off, engraved and provided to the soldier when fighter sales suddenly picked up in 1964. At least that is a plausible story and tracks the original supposition if "The Magic Randall." And it acknowledges the very early '60s characteristics of the knife.
As an aside, notice the similarity of this APFK and the previously posted 2-5 boot knife, posted again here.
