Question about an old Vic Climber

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waltmc

Joined
Dec 10, 2012
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Howdy! I've tried searching for any knowledge on this without success, so I thought you all might be able to help.

I have this Climber pictured below, which I got as a gift from my cousin in the early '90s. It had already seen a fair share of use by that point.
Nothing about this is particularly strange for a model of its age: grooved corkscrew, eyeless awl, screw-joint scissors, metal headed tweezers, no hook.
The mark side tang stamp is four lines: VSSR

Here's my question: There is no "Officier Suisse" stamp on the pile side. It's blank. What gives? Most of the tang stamp references I've seen show variations on the Officier Suisse with or without the crossbow and the like, but I don't know that I've seen much reference to ones without a stamp.

This is purely out of curiosity; I'm not hoping to find some rare or exotic variation. I'm just wondering what happened. Did the machine burp on mine and forget to stamp it? Is this only for enlisted troops, not officers? :rolleyes:

sak.jpg


Thanks for the help!
Walt.
 
Thanks, Capt. Spaulding! Maybe some answers will turn up.

Frank: Correct; that's the stamp it wears on the front side tang. As you can see in the picture, the rear is totally blank, which is what's confusing me :confused:
 
I pulled a couple old Climbers and a Hoffritz Spartan out and none of them had the same tang stamps as your knife. Mine were probably pre 1985; they were in red boxes with white lettering.
 
Frank: I appreciate you checking in your collection. Just to be clear, when you say that your tang stamps were not like mine, do you mean that yours had the "Officier Suisse" stamp on the reverse tang of the blade?

I took some close ups, which might be more useful than the original image. For the longest time, this was my only SAK, so when I got a more recent one that had the "Officier Suisse" stamp on it, I wondered "when did they add that?" Turns out I was wrong, as every other one I've seen has that stamp. Who knew?

Because of the metal tweezer head, I assume that this is pre-1978, if that helps any.

2014-08-14


2014-08-14
 
Last edited:
I remember seeing something on SAK Wiki and MTO about tang stamps and some SAKs through the years were blank on that side. VSSR stamped blades had the Officier Suisse and crossbow after '74 (I think).
 
Thanks, SAK Guy! I'll check over on those sites again. I seem to recall having read something like that before, but cannot find (or remember) where it was.
 
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