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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is available! Price is $250 ea (shipped within CONUS).
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/
Photos Western USA L66 E with OG sheath
- Thread starter KillBunny
- Start date
afishhunter
Basic Member
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- Oct 21, 2014
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- 14,760
Amen, Brother.
The prior owner ... "probably" ... had (IMHO "DID" have) a vacuum between ears ... I bet it constantly whistled loudly as air rushed in through its ears in a unsuccessful attempt to fill that vacuum.
The prehistoric adage "You can't fix stupid!" comes to mind when something is stupid enough to introduce their knife to a grinder.
"e" = 1981, if you did not know.
Can you clean up the edge with a stone, or is it to far gone?
Welcome to BF.
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- May 29, 2023
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It's can be cleaned up with a stone. I don't hate doing that but I hate doing that for the reasons given..takes forever it seems like. And I can't get a pic to load on the threads. Doesn't seems to give me the option to. And thank you for the info on the lettering etc. I know the the striping means something and their all coded differently. do you have any insight? This one is double red
afishhunter
Basic Member
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2014
- Messages
- 14,760
Starting in '77 they used a letter. '77 "A" '78 "B" and so on. I think that the letter code was used up to "J" ('87). Coleman had bought Western in '86(?) They dropped the letter date code after 1987. From what I remember, the washer code was used before and after the letter code (the Coleman and Camilus years are after) but I don't know how to translate.
Perhaps
zzyzzogeton
does? He the resident Western expert. 
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2013
- Messages
- 6,174
I can't see any pictures, so I won't comment on the knife specified by the OP.
Date coding went all the way through the Coleman years up to "O", 1991. Not very many "O" knives pop up.
Camillus dropped date coding when they bought the property rights from the businessmen who had bought Western from Coleman and ran it into the ground.
"Washer coding" wasn't really a thing with Western, at least in terms of a specific year. An era, of 3 to 8 years' duration might be indicated by the spacer pattern, e.g., everything made from 1950 to 1954 would GENERALLY have the same spacer pattern, but there are exceptions. Western was really good about making sure the catalog pictures (and engravings on the early catalogs) accurately depicted the products being pandered. One must compare the knives in hand to the knives as depicted in the catalog to learn how the engraving artists depicted red, black, cream, white, brass, nickel-silver, leather, etc
Stamp examination is much better for determining year of manufacture, except for the date coded knives and the serial number Westmark 701/702/703. I can identify a specific Westmark 701/702/703 down to the day it was stamped and sent to heat treatment because I now am in possession of the stamp record book for the Westmark line as of 2 weeks ago.
Some knives can be pinned down to a single year, e.g., knives introduced in 1941 before WW2 started and were not part of the wartime production lines AND were NOT resurrected after the war. The short 1973 to 1976 period knives are identifiable by the stamps and locations.
And as with all "rules of thumb", there are exceptions to all the rules and you just ultimately have to learn the knives themselves.
Date coding went all the way through the Coleman years up to "O", 1991. Not very many "O" knives pop up.
Camillus dropped date coding when they bought the property rights from the businessmen who had bought Western from Coleman and ran it into the ground.
"Washer coding" wasn't really a thing with Western, at least in terms of a specific year. An era, of 3 to 8 years' duration might be indicated by the spacer pattern, e.g., everything made from 1950 to 1954 would GENERALLY have the same spacer pattern, but there are exceptions. Western was really good about making sure the catalog pictures (and engravings on the early catalogs) accurately depicted the products being pandered. One must compare the knives in hand to the knives as depicted in the catalog to learn how the engraving artists depicted red, black, cream, white, brass, nickel-silver, leather, etc
Stamp examination is much better for determining year of manufacture, except for the date coded knives and the serial number Westmark 701/702/703. I can identify a specific Westmark 701/702/703 down to the day it was stamped and sent to heat treatment because I now am in possession of the stamp record book for the Westmark line as of 2 weeks ago.
Some knives can be pinned down to a single year, e.g., knives introduced in 1941 before WW2 started and were not part of the wartime production lines AND were NOT resurrected after the war. The short 1973 to 1976 period knives are identifiable by the stamps and locations.
And as with all "rules of thumb", there are exceptions to all the rules and you just ultimately have to learn the knives themselves.