Zane Grey liked kabar

The knife, yes. One with an etch like that, no. If mine ever had one it's gone. Most likely, the etch was only applied for a year or two, which would narrow the year of manufacture for your knife.
 
Had to have been before 1939 as that was the year of his death. Pearl Zane Grey was a pretty interesting guy. That is a neat find.

-OKB
 
The patent is dated 1931-32. Zane Grey also endorsed a Kabar fly fishing tool at the same time. Both items are among the most collectable in Richard D. White's book, Advertising Cutlery with values. They are equally hard to find in good condition as well.
 
OFFICIAL_KA-BAR said:
Had to have been before 1939 as that was the year of his death. Pearl Zane Grey was a pretty interesting guy. That is a neat find.

-OKB
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I believe you are mistaken here, I sold one with the "Olean NY" mark, no Union Cut mark and that stamp started around 1942 or 1943. His endorsement could have been used well after his death. It is a shame you folks up there in Olean have little records left, but throwing out unfounded statements doesn't help. If it comes from you, people will take it as gospel, and since you are just surmising it isn't gospel at all.
 
gunsil said:
I believe you are mistaken here, I sold one with the "Olean NY" mark, no Union Cut mark and that stamp started around 1942 or 1943. His endorsement could have been used well after his death. It is a shame you folks up there in Olean have little records left,
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What happened to all the records?
 
Every time Kabar changed hands, a house cleaning would occur as long time employees left and cleaned out their desks/file cabinets. When headquarters moved from Olean to Cleveland to Olean again, stuff was lost, discarded, misplaced, etc because it was easier and cheaper to trash than move/store.

On the dealer side, back in the day, most folks didn't have a clue that 40-50-60-70-80 years later someone would be interested in some old catalogs. Last year's catalog took up space. "Why do I need to keep that old version - the new one has the correct prices." Maybe they were trashed, maybe they were recycled as outhouse toilet paper (one of the primary uses of last year's Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog). Store old paper and you get an invasion of silverfish, which eat the magazines, catalogs and anything else you might have stored. Spring cleaning comes around and Momma discards, burns, etc all that old musty paper just lying around.

Add in periodic fires, floods and tornadoes and old paper documents become history.
 
The Union Cut factory also moved before they were sold to Coleman and I'm sure a lot of records were lost then. I have acquired some old stag and some sheath snaps that were recovered from the Olean dump in the early 1950s, but like ZYYY says, most folks didn't care about old catalogs and price lists etc.
 
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