Uncommon Camillus 1949 dated US Steel Pocket Knife
While returning from a family reunion, my wife wanted to stop by a couple of Antique Stores in Virginia. In the first one we went into, in the first case that I looked into, was one of the steel pocket knives with US on the outside. The price was more than I would normally spend, but when I opened up the knife and saw that it was a Camillus dated 1949, I figured that I would probably never see one dated 1949 again. It has brass spacers, but otherwise looks like the later dated ones. The post on the screw drive blade looks a little different than the later ones.
The US Army started contracting for these in 1944 and 1945 from Kingston and Stevenson, but didn’t pick up any more until 1957, when it let a contract to Camillus. The 1949 dated knives are prototypes that Camillus made; not sure how many, but as far as I can tell, they are very uncommon. The best authority on Camillus, Tom Williams, said that he has only seen two or three in the past 30 years.
Here are some of the WWII and Viet Nam era steel knives for comparisons.
The bottom knife was made in 1944 by Kingston for the Army, possibly a test knife, while the second from bottom (also made by Kingston) was made in 1945 when the Army decided to move the screwdriver/bottle opener opposite the long blade. Both of these knives had the blades blued.
The top two knives were made by Camillus and are marked and dated. The top knife is dated in 1974, when the small piece attached to the screwdriver/bottle opener was left off the knife. The second from top is dated 1965 and was the type that I carried for many years.
Here is another picture with the screwdriver/bottle opener of the knives open to show how the position of the screwdriver/bottle opener was moved.
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Originally Posted by P.J. O'Rourke; The Liberty Manifesto
