Camillus 100th Anniversary knife

bertl

bertl

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As part of its 100th Anniversary Camillus issued two models which were essentially the Buck 301 and the Buck 309. The tang stamp for these knives was “Camillus/New York/USA” with “200” on the pile side for the 301 knife and “100” on the pile side for 309 knife. The blade was stamped “100th Anniversary/ Limited Edition”. The term Limited Edition was loosely used, since about ten-thousand of these knives were made. Apparently the knives were sold in a tin, which also contained a medallion.

A knife I got recently doesn’t match the above description. By the time I got it there was no tin or medallion and the tang stamp is “BUCK/309/USA”. There is no stamp on the pile side.

My question is, “Was this knife assembled at some later date using leftover parts, or was it part of the original run with the accidental use of a Buck stamped blade?”

I posted this question on the Camillus forum but haven’t had any replies yet.

Bert

100th 1.jpg 100th 2.jpg
 
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Limited Edition, not addition, right?
I'm guessing it's made up from parts, but my guess is mostly intuition and maybe something I read long ago somewhere that I forgot.
:D
It's a great knife, anyhow.
I'd buy it.
 
You're forgiven. :) That form is commonly used. It means "Can you tell me stranger things have not happened?"
The answer implicit is--no, you can't tell me that.
Therefore, it's a statement saying that indeed, stranger things have happened.
Usually, somewhere along the line a few blades are made up by mistake and those parts (along with others) are found later and used up. Maybe those blades were lying around among the mounds of parts that Camillus sold off when they went belly up.

As far as that stamp goes, I don't think it's too hard these days to make one of those cheap etchings on a blade. Even the Chinese can do it. :)

Anyhow it's an interesting question and I'm sure they can answer it for you on the Camillus forum.
Nice looking knife, too.
 
Bert and I have not talked about this knife. Since it was not answered by any old Camillus employees in the Camillus forum; for me it is a "Who Know's" knife. I know I have a Camillus wood body 3 blade stockman with a Buck 301 stamped blade, Long pull, no date stamp. And, a 'white' scales, Camillus shield, two blades on the same end with a Buck stamped blade . Memory fails its either a 303 or 309 main blade. My take on this would be blades are not etched in hand, one at a time with 100th logo. Likley, they are set up in machine with bunch of blade's and etching occurred automatically. A Buck 309 blade may have decided it had no hope for a nice black serrated delrin scale life and jumped ship. Maybe this was a SMKWs offer, i.e. both size knives in tin. One of the SMKWs catalog experts might be able to find it for us. Goes on the 'Oddball' page along with my two. 300

PS My search in the Camillus collectors forum turned up photos and info, maybe it was not a SMKWs offering.
 
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300Bucks said:
My take on this would be blades are not etched in hand, one at a time with 100th logo. Likely, they are set up in machine with bunch of blades and etching occurred automatically. A Buck 309 blade may have decided it had no hope for a nice black serrated delrin scale life and jumped ship. 300
Click to expand...

And ten or 29 or a maybe even a whole big bunch of nice, well-behaved Buck blades may have been hanging out with a shady group of ill-chosen friends and gotten caught up in illicit etching until some etcher said, "Whoops."
 
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