Old Hollow Handle KA-BAR

J

Jason Richmond

Joined
Jun 17, 2005
Messages
361
I bought this old knife a while back and am looking for any information I can get on it. Chrome plated blade says Union Cutlery Co. on one side and KA-BAR on the other. Handle is cast aluminum and hollow with one pin holding the blade. Good quality steel that takes a sharp edge and the blade connection seems sturdy. Blade is about 5" long. I have seen old Case XX knives like this in some of the WW2 knife books but never a Ka-Bar. Any info is greatly appreciated.
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Jason,

You have a Union Cutlery Model #2071-5. There were two series of knives: #2000 had aluminum hollow handles; #3000 had molded rubber handles. There were two blades for each handle. The 000 config had an 4-1/2" upswept skinner blade and the 071 was a bloodgrooved clip point. The clip points came in both 5 and 6 inch lengths. Yours is the 5 inch.
Made in the 1930s up to the war.
Hope this helps.

Best Regards,


Paul Tsujimoto
Sr Eng
Prod Dev and Qual
KA-BAR Knives
 
Way to go Brian.

Good find. Interestingly, I have never seen a hollow handled Cattaraugus fixed blade. Have You?

Best Regards,

Paul Tsujimoto
Sr Eng
Prod Dev and Qual
KA-BAR Knives
 
No Cattaraugus, only Case and Ka-Bar.
Click to expand...
Brian,

Agreed. Must have been one of those secret family mtgs where they swapped the rights to produce each other's patented designs. ;)

Best Regards,

Paul Tsujimoto
Sr Eng
Prod Dev and Qual
KA-BAR Knives
 
The patent N. Brian refers to is not for a hollow handled knife as the KA-BAR is. It is for a knife with a compass in the butt. This knife does not have an accessible compartment in the handle although the handle is made of a brass tube. Like the patent says, the tube is merely there to insulate the compass from the steel blade. The compass is mounted in the butt which does not screw off to access inside the tubular handle frame. There is also a Cattaraugus knife with this handle construction which has a spring scale for weighing fish in the hollow handle. This scale is fixed and comes out through the aluminum butt. As with the compass butt Catt, there is no storage space in the handle just the scale mechanism. I have several of each of these knives.
 
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