Vic Farmer Serial Number?

TucsonMik

TucsonMik

Joined
Aug 2, 2012
Messages
178
Hi everyone,

I'm sorry if I'm asking a silly question, but I recently bought a Vic Farmer (no box) and have a question.

On the main blade, one side of the tang stamp reads "Victorinox Switzerland Stainless Rostfrei", and the other side has a "03" stamped on it. Is that a serial number? I've never seen a Vic with a stamp like that before and I'm having difficulty finding any information on BF or the web.

Thanks for your help! Here are a couple of pictures.



 
Ah, that's not a Farmer you have there. It's a Victorinox Soldier, manufactured in 2003.

If there is a wood saw in there, it would indicate it was either modified or repaired using the blade from a Soldier; it could also be a Pioneer with the same repair / modification.
 
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Hi Yalius,

Thank you for helping me figure this out. From what I can tell it is a Farmer -- it looks exactly like the Farmer pictured on the Victorinox website. Same frame, tools, etc. as the one in this link: http://www.victorinox.com/us/product/Swiss-Army-Knives/Category/Hunting/Farmer/53964

It's interesting that it didn't come with a box. I purchased it at a local outdoor store and it was marked down by $1 because it didn't have the box. I bet you're right about the blade, though. Maybe it was repaired by the dealer using the blade from a soldier? Weird.
 
When Vic had an overrun of year stamped blades for the Soldier knives, they were put into the other 93mm alox models. So it most likely wasn't repaired or modified, but came that way from the factory.
 
SAKsRCool said:
When Vic had an overrun of year stamped blades for the Soldier knives, they were put into the other 93mm alox models. So it most likely wasn't repaired or modified, but came that way from the factory.
Click to expand...

This makes sense, too. Thank you! It's good to know that even the Swiss can make a mistake every now and then and have an overrun. I figured those guys were perfect and never made mistakes. What a relief! :thumbup:
 
It's quite a common occurrence for the alox line to contain a year-stamped blade. It looks like you have a 2003 Soldier, which IIRC is the same as the Pioneer, except that the Pioneer adds a key ring. The Farmer adds a saw to the Pioneer combo. I'm not sure though because you said that your knife has the same implements as the Farmer, but the pics don't seems to show the key ring (unless the angle of the picture didn't show it).

I think 2003 was the last year they produced the alox Soldier. After that, the Swiss Army (the actual army, not the brand) began using the larger, locking version of the Soldier with green grippy scales. So if you have a 2003 Soldier, it's somewhat of a collector's item, albeit one that can still be found from time to time. Nice find!
 
Interesting, I haven't been very active on the forums in a while so this is news to me as well. My farmer doesn't have that so I suppose it's pretty much as basic of a model as it gets for the farmer (silver alox) :D
 
flybri said:
It's quite a common occurrence for the alox line to contain a year-stamped blade. It looks like you have a 2003 Soldier, which IIRC is the same as the Pioneer, except that the Pioneer adds a key ring. The Farmer adds a saw to the Pioneer combo. I'm not sure though because you said that your knife has the same implements as the Farmer, but the pics don't seems to show the key ring (unless the angle of the picture didn't show it).

I think 2003 was the last year they produced the alox Soldier. After that, the Swiss Army (the actual army, not the brand) began using the larger, locking version of the Soldier with green grippy scales. So if you have a 2003 Soldier, it's somewhat of a collector's item, albeit one that can still be found from time to time. Nice find!
Click to expand...

I'm not sure about the last year the alox Soldier was produced, but the changeover to the "New Soldier" was made in 2008. Thanks to the luck of a draw, I have a New Soldier with an inscription on the blade identifying it as from a first 1000 run batch, dated 2008.
 
Hi all,

Thank you for helping me figure this out. I wanted to post a better picture so you can see the saw and lanyard ring on the end. I don't have all the tools out because I didn't want to damage the backspring, but hopefully this gives you a better view:



The two implements not shown are the can opener and bottle opener.
 
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