Thoughts on this USMC MK2 possibly from WWII?

[HunterK10]

Hi, I hope to get some more information on this USMC MK2 knife that my wife's late Grandfather had. He joined the Marines in 1943 and served in Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The family found two knives at his home and I was gifted one knife by them. The other knife is being kept by his daughter for now and is a whole different story (almost mint condition compared to this one). I'll post about it later in the Camillus forum.

Below are some pictures of the knife that I was gifted. It seems to have gone through hell and back. From the research that I have already done, it seems to be an early threaded tang / thick butt version KA-BAR. Does that sound about right? As you can see, its tough to make that determination as the pommel has been broken off. It does have the KA-BAR / OLEAN NY stamping, though. There is no lettering on the scabbard that I can see, but it did have some extra love added to it with the custom reinforcement. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Let me know what you guys think of it.

 

[zzyzzogeton]

Definitely a WW2 1219C2. The thin smaller font is correct. Whether the pommel was a screw-on/peened or just rectangular/peened is not identifiable.

Both the screw-on/round-peened and the rectangular/peened knives have the same pommel stem. Both were stamped out with rectangular stems.

The screwed-on/peened had the stem rounded a bit and then threads cut into the pommel stem, the pommel screwed down and then the overage was peened tight.

The rectangular/peened stem was simply inserted into a square hole stamped in the pommel and then peened over. This speeded up production and reduced manufacturing costs.

 

[Swampdog]

If that knife could speak... I'd love to hear it's stories!

Thanks for sharing the photos and the information HunterK10 and zzyzzogeton.

 

[HunterK10]

You're welcome and thanks for the information zzyzzogeton. Roughly, what year would you put this knife at? I read in some other places that this could be an early model due to it being blade marked with the inclusion of "Olean NY"? Later versions were guard marked and/or omitted the city?

Yeah, I would definitely like to hear the KA-BAR's story because, as I mentioned, our Grandpa had a second knife. His Camillus knife is in pristine shape compared to the KA-BAR which confuses the hell out of me. I was going to make a post in the Camillus section of the forum, but I'll post a couple of photos of that knife here. Maybe he broke his first knife, got a second one and decided to take better care of it? We will never know. (He also carved all of his destinations on the back of the scabbard.) Maybe one knife was for actual use and the other was for a memento? This is all so interesting to me.

 

[zzyzzogeton]

Hunter,

Since your knife has "Olean NY" on it means that your knife was most likely made between mid-summer 1943 to late 1943, when the changes go to the 1/4" thick pommel aka the thin pommel. Sometime before the end of 1943 a change order was put out removing the requirement

It would NOT have been one of the very first ones shipped out for 2 reasons ::

- first, it does NOT have red spacers at the guard. The red spacer Kabars are generally assumed to be early production. Partly because red dye became a restricted use material. Partly because all other later versions. i.e., rectangular tang w/ thick pommel and later all have black spacers.

- second, it has USMC stamped into the opposite side ricasso. The first batches Kabar and Camillus put out did not have a branch stuck into the ricasso. That came along with a change order, IIRC, the same change order that shifted from round/peened to rectangular/peened.

Somewhere I have a timeline of all the change orders but I'm danged if I can find it right now.

 

[315]

Regardless of the date those knives were made and if they were actually the knives he carried, it's still a very cool thing to have and to pass down. I was fortunate enough to actually go to the island of Iwo Jima when I was in the Marines in 1991. It was surreal and an experience I'll never forget. My Grandfather gave me the knife he carried in the war on Okinawa. Who knows, perhaps my knife passed by your knife???