Yet another Ka-Bar ID question

D

DFlanagan

Joined
Nov 7, 2015
Messages
3
Hello everyone,

New to the forum and have a question about a knife I picked up at a flea market today. I don't have pics of it yet so I'll try to provide as much information about it as possible. I hope to get some taken tomorrow when I have better light and the knife is a bit cleaner.

It appears to be the hunter model. 5" carbon steel (it has a nice, dark patina) clip point blade with a false edge on the clipped section, flat grind and no fuller. 9.5" OAL. The only tang stamp on the knife is KA-BAR (above, large font), OLEAN, N.Y. (below, small font) on the left face of the ricasso (faces the body when sheathed). It has the stacked leather handle with what appears to be a cast aluminum guard and pommel. Adjacent to the guard and pommel is a red ring. There are no finger grooves in the handle. There is no exposed rivet or screw on the pommel; it appears to have been filled in with aluminum. The pommel is oval-shaped and not offset like the newer models. The sheath appears to be the original. KA-BAR is stamped at the top of the front. There are six rivets around the perimeter of the blade pouch. It seems like there should have been a seventh to make it symmetrical but I don't see any evidence that one may have fallen out.

Thanks for any info you can provide. I'll try to get some pics put up ASAP.

-David
 
Yep, still need pics. And it would be nice to know if the guard was nickle or steel, KA-BAR did not use aluminum guards.
 
gunsil said:
Yep, still need pics. And it would be nice to know if the guard was nickle or steel, KA-BAR did not use aluminum guards.
Click to expand...

Thanks for looking. I got a few pics but they're pretty poor quality. Hopefully you can see what needs to be seen.







 
Your knife appears to be a late 1940s model 598 although it has a lot of blade wear making it a little hard to tell. The KA-BAR over Olean, NY mark first appeared around late 1942 or 1943 and since it has an aluminum pommel and a nickel guard it is a post war knife. The pommel is lead filled with no nut used, a system cheaper to produce than using a brass nut to hold it on. This system was used only a few years before they started using a pin to hold the pommel on. Case, Cattaraugus, and Kinfolks all made pommels with the poured lead around the same time era.
 
Thanks for the info! I really appreciate it.

It's definitely beat up but I think it will be fun trying to restore it and get some use out of it. Sure looks like someone did.
 
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