Here is the 1961 dated sheath, west-facing stamp, from Hunts book. I knew you'd remember and like this Ron, because it is a #3. Hunt says:
??Interestingly, the Johnson sheath is marked 1961 on the back, along with the name, which is also etched on the blade and SO East Asia 1964-1968.?
There is one more I can?t locate yet, but its a paper-work documented model-1 knife ordered in 1961, delivered in Jan 1962, brown button west stamp facing sheath? All in all, quite a number of 1960-1961 knives with vertical west facing stamp.
However, there may be something more going on. The east-facing stamps also seem to all be on sheaths that have the keeper snap moved to the edge... at least in the misicule sample that I had access to. So it may be that the stamp change was concurrent with the construction change. Was the construction change concurrent with a change in manufacturer? Here is where the major collectors can impact by publishing numerous pictures of knife-front/back sheath of their brown buttons.
For instance, if we could see the back of sheath for these three knives, it might invalidate the statement about ?no knives with obvious post 1963 features are in sheaths with west-facing stamp.? I would hazard a guess these sheaths all have a west facing stamp. The first was posted by ?Big Jim? on another board, the other two are from Hunt?s book.
Maybe there should be some caution equating the stamp change to Heiser/Johnson at this point. You all who have spent years looking at the real product have clues that id sheaths from construction patterns that I?m not savey about. However, in my day job, I investigate major oil field accidents offshore for the Fed Gov. So I tend to ask a lot of questions. And I also tend to ask what ?is normal behavior??
Heiser stamped their sheaths horizontally. It would be reasonable, normal behavior, to suppose that if they were required to use a new stamp, they would use it initially in the same manner, horizontally. But what would make them switch to vertical west-facing, especially if the sheaths with horizontal stamp and west stamp are closely concurrent in dates? Well, perhaps the Randall stamp wouldn?t fit horizontally on all the sheaths so they changed the orientation to vertical or something? that would be reasonable.
But, it is also possible to speculate that an entirely different company became involved here. That would be reasonable if it was shown that there was an overlap between west and east facing stamps after Heiser was definitely out of the picture. I guess I would not be too surprised to see the west stamp overlap the horizontal stamp and also overlap the east stamp for a period of time. However, I think it is definite that Mr. Johnson?s shop made the east-stamps with edge keeper snap.
Also, I?m pretty convinced that there are some fighting knives made in the 50s that were sheathed and sold in the early 60s as Vietnam heated up. I?ve several candidates? including the famous
magic Randall.
It could be a productive line of inquiry and interesting to boot even if nothing definitive pans out.