Question on relative ages of Western "F" prefix knives

D

Docwaters

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Jun 23, 2001
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I have 4 western Black Beauties. Two have the model designation stamped on the tang opposite the Western stamp. The others have the model stamped on the front of the guard. Any idea on which method of model designation is older? Thanks.
 
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I believe that the front of the guard is the older. In 1977, Western started a letter dating with "A" on the blade.
 
Neither of the 2 knives, with the tang stamps, has a "prefix" letter to the "F." One is a F48B and the other is a F66. I have a copy of Platts 1978 book on Western knives and I cannot find anything about this topic.
 
Docwaters, Dennis Ellingsen, aka ibdennis, did an indepth study of the Black Beauty pattern not long ago for an article he was writing for publication. He would be most likely to know. I don't have his contact information, and don't remember what publication his article was written for, very possible the Oregon Knife Collector's Newsletter. If I remember correctly, the Black Beauty production did not span a long period of time, relatively speaking.

Codger
 
The letter A would be the A under the stamp, and would stand alone on it's own line, with B = 1978, C = 1979, etc.

The F or A before and after the pattern number would be associated with the pattern and variations of the pattern. I've seen some of Dennis Ellingson's research on Black Beauty knives. I used to find a web page article he did, but I could not find it tonight.
 
There are no other letters on that side of the tang, other than the model designation, eg., F66 or F48B.
 
That would indicate it was 1977 or before. I am not sure when they dropped the BOULDER from the stamps, but I've heard around 1960.
 
I did look at all the recent 2008-2007 back issues of the Oregon Knife Club (oregonknifeclub.org) and couldn't find the article mentioned by Codger64. I did look at Platt's book and the first catalog appearance of the Black Beauty knives is in 1960 and the last in 1978. The 1978 catalog lists only one model the F48 or F28, I can't remember and don't have the book at hand. Thanks to all.
 
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