Identifing the Age of a Pre-1986 Knife

[brasda]

About five years ago I found a Buck 301 in a mud puddle on the Appalachian Trail. It was badly rusted and the blades had been abused a bit. I am in the processes of cleaning it up. I know from your website that it was manufactured sometime between 1973 and 1985 (stamped w/ the name "BUCK"; has the model number underneath (301); and below that "U.S.A." - No date code). The blades appear to be flat ground verses hollow.

Is there any way to narrow down the age of the knife to a time period of less than 12 years?

Sincerly,

David Alley

 

[Joe Houser]

David,

Although there has been a ton of research on the 300 series knives, i can not tell you when individual changes took place. From your description, i can tell that the knife was made for us by Camillus sometime after late 1971. That is when we had them add the model number. The interesting thing is that they only started making the knife earlier that year and i know of at least 4 variations that took place during that time frame.
I know i did nothing more than re-state what you already knew but hopefully this helps a little.


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Joe Houser
Director of Consumer relations
Buck Collectors club Administrator and member #123