Older vintage Bushmaster (model 19) date and material identity help???

[Silly Rabbit]

I want to start by thanking Sheldon for my recent purchase of a vintage model 2 from him...love the blade and the transaction was a lot of fun.

Also I do want to say that I do have his as well as other books and have attempted to date this blade myself, the lack of the stone is making it a little harder for me.

I also will say that they say buy the knife, not the story, I will share my guess as to age after I know the actual truth from the experts, I will share the story later as well.

Some things I noticed, seems that a hole is in the base of the sheath with a leather passthrough like you could pull a leather strap thought to stabilize/tie on you thigh, was this original? The keeper strap around the guard and not handle seems to be sewn in as original (not on the side of the sheath with obvious repair stitching) was this done original? Was it typical or special request? This sheath has no signs of where the stone pocket would have been, I assume it came without but haven't seen this (no stone) on this model yet any comments? Who made the sheath? The Dimple in the middle of the sheath that looks like a partial drill hole seems to be from something that was sitting on top of or against the sheath..not a component of the sheath itself and not intentional.

The guard looks not brass, like nickel silver...the butt seems to to duralumin, was the acorn or other nut ground down flush or did it come like this? Are my material guesses correct?

Can anyone tell me what type of wood this is?

The red spacers are very burgundy in color, the darker middle and end spacers are discolored, can't tell if they are black or blue, do you know?

The blade grind obviously is older then the new 1967 grind, but looks even different than the grind on the older model 19 in Sheldon's book, comments?

And oh yeah...year built?

Thanks for all your help...can't wait to hear comments...

Pics to follow...

 

[Silly Rabbit]

Pics

 

[Silly Rabbit]

More pics

 

[Silly Rabbit]

Sheath pics

 

[Melvin-Purvis]

Hi Jeff, thanks for your kind words.

The spacers will tell approximately when the knife was assembled and finished. In this case, that particular five spacer stack with the bright red spacers was used in the 1970's, from the later half of 1972 into mid 1977 on standard models (and into the early 1980's on the larger Bowie models, which were built in a separate room at the Randall Shop using their own material stock) - the sheath is a Johnson Roughback from the same period with some, er, user modifications (looks like a dog chewed on it too). As to the tang nut, the early '70's was a transition period for pommel mounting; I'd check to see if the pommel is actually pinned side-to-side.

I don't know enough about wood types to wager a guess on what that is, but if I had to, I'd say shop supplied rose wood. As to the blade grind/shape, use of older blade stock was very common during this period using the first in, last out rule as blade stock was pulled from blade bins to fill orders - again, the spacer type used generally helps date the assembly period.

Hope that helps.

 

[Silly Rabbit]

Indeed helps..thanks...

The fact that older blade stock was pulled and used as needed till it is/was gone it the tidbit I was missing, the grind not being "consistent" with the spacers is what was throwing me.

The sheath was supposedly "attached" to webbing on battle dress of a gentleman who was serving in Vietnam. You can see that both sides show balanced wrapping notches where it was attached. Sure looks as though the sheath went to war in a jungle lol.