This is the stamp as it first appeared in 1974 with a full serrif "1". I see these on brown boxed knives.
This is how it was stamped circa mid 1980's with a non-serrif "l". I see these mostly on tan "sharp idea" boxed and clampacked knives.
Sometime in the late eighties to early nineties, it changed to a top serrif only. I see these mostly in the blue boxed and clampacked and last diamond plate boxed and clampacked knives.
I cannot give exact years for these tangstamp changes, only the rough order in which they appeared.
This is the picture mentioned above.
There is no record of how many tang stamps were ordered when, but the Sharpfinger was a very high production knife so I imagine that before one stamp was completely worn out, a replacement was ordered and on hand. I've not done any kind of survey to determine how many sub-types of the stamps exist other than the three most apparent changes mentioned above. I know that coin collectors have done this with coin dies, but AFAIK, it has not been done with these stamps. Even if it were possible to establish an order of appearance of the subtypes, setting years would be impossible, IMHO. We have production figures, but the knives themselves are not dated. Neither are most of the boxes and paperwork. Some logos on boxes or papers can be dated, but only roughly so. And dependent on them not being mismatched by the dealers or subsequent owners.
