Cold Steel Knife - No origin of country

[cowhorse01]

I have a cold steel srk knife from a friend that says is was really old. Looks real to me but at the base of the blade or tang it just says , SRK and then below it says Cold Steel Carbon V and thats it. Does not say USA or anything else. There are pictures posted/links in earlier post today if you need to see pictures, earlier posts asks for authenticity.

 

[cowhorse01]

I have a cold steel srk knife from a friend that says is was really old. Looks real to me but at the base of the blade or tang it just says , SRK and then below it says Cold Steel Carbon V and thats it. Does not say USA or anything else. There are pictures posted/links in earlier post today if you need to see pictures, earlier posts asks for authenticity.

ok just saw it way down deep underneath Cold Steel Carbon V is does say made in USA, almost like the blade shifted down into the handle, I had to use a magnifying glass to see the top of the wording, its about half covered up so yes its the real deal, now I just wonder around when it was made since the tang stamp is different than the other carbon v blades

 

[jlauffer]

The SRK was announced as a new product for 1990...I have a copy of the flyer announcing it and some other new models (ATC and Magnum Tanto II among them). As far as I know, the initial version had the markings like yours (from pics in your other post), on one side only. The pic in the flyer is pretty poor so can't see any detail. I am not sure when they changed to the markings on both sides, but I think it was pretty quick. The earliest catalog I have with the SRK is 1992, and the pic shows only SRK on the side they show. Also, the original SRKs had more of a "parkerized" type finish, which at some point changed to epoxy powder coating. The 1992 catalog mentions the epoxy, so when they made that change they may have also needed to change the markings to keep them visible...the lettering under the SRK was pretty small on those original versions, so the epoxy may have just filled them in.