Yeah I can confirm that; he told me he was not the original owner. Also did someone want to see a comparison of the turtle next to another knife? I can’t remember but I thought I saw that somewhere. It also has your older K mark so I don’t know if that helps or not.
Might as well compare it to a Kephart and rule 9 if you have both.
If I'm involved in the pass-around, I'll do some comparisons with some other knives not of the JK variety, if no one objects. My current favorite all-purpose, "if I could only have one" is a saber ground LT Wright bushcrafter mark II... which is pretty darn similar to the mud turtle in size of blade and handle and has that Kephart-ish blade but a different grind (not a FFG or convex, which are great slicers but I like saber more for wood). The LT has a more neutral handle but the mud turtle's handle doesn't look over contoured so it has all appearances that it would work in most grips, but chest-lever is one where you can really tell when contouring isn't ideal for some bushcraft techniques. By looks and specs, it seems like it has to be a very fine knife, even with some stiff competition in realm of characteristics.
To be straight up and honest, I want to pit it head to head with the mark II. I've passed through a lot of blades thinking they could be nicer: LT genesis, ratmandu, bk16, BK62, esee 6, esee 6hm, SYKCO safety mutt, and I'm sure there are a few others I'm missing in there. Point being, the mud turtle has many of the same attributes of the "winner" of that list which is really exciting. Mainly, the overall size and the blade shape, which I honestly think isn't pretty but it just works too darn well.
