A PAL RH-37

[Patchcollector]

Happy weekend to all,

Here is a recent find that I'm kind of excited about.It's a USN Fighting Knife, Mark 2 from the WW2 era.Here are the sellers' pic for it.

 

[Patchcollector]

More pics

[Bearmon]

Like it Like it a lot! But I am not a knife guru!

[Patchcollector]

Thanks Bearmon.I'm just learning myself.Apparently,and the experts will correct me if I'm mistaken,this is the Navy's version of the "Ka-Bar".Ka-Bar made the ones for the Marines,PAL made the Navy ones,but I believe they are both the same pattern.

[etienne]

Thanks Bearmon.I'm just learning myself.Apparently,and the experts will correct me if I'm mistaken,this is the Navy's version of the "Ka-Bar".Ka-Bar made the ones for the Marines,PAL made the Navy ones,but I believe they are both the same pattern.

 

Hello,

 

it's a little bit more complicated ... United Cutlery made the so-called Kabar for the USMC and the Navy, as did Camillus, Robeson Shuredge and PAL, during ww2.

 

There are different patterns, from the early red spacers Kabar to the late guard marked knives.

 

PAL knives are not scarce and are regularly available on Ebay, but they demand a higher price than Kabars and Camillus. They are very well finished compared to some other manufacturers knives, and PAL only manufactured the "red spacer" early pattern, for the USMC and the Navy.

 

I am no knives expert, and that's all I can say about this topic ... the knife you're showing is very nice indeed and would be a nice addition to any knives collection.

 

E

[Tony V]

Congratulations ! Very nice example of the Pal 37. Looks like a fine addition to your collection.

Thank you for posting it.

 

Tony

[Patchcollector]

 

Hello,

 

it's a little bit more complicated ... United Cutlery made the so-called Kabar for the USMC and the Navy, as did Camillus, Robeson Shuredge and PAL, during ww2.

 

There are different patterns, from the early red spacers Kabar to the late guard marked knives.

 

PAL knives are not scarce and are regularly available on Ebay, but they demand a higher price than Kabars and Camillus. They are very well finished compared to some other manufacturers knives, and PAL only manufactured the "red spacer" early pattern, for the USMC and the Navy.

 

I am no knives expert, and that's all I can say about this topic ... the knife you're showing is very nice indeed and would be a nice addition to any knives collection.

 

E

 

 

Thanks for this info E!

 

Congratulations ! Very nice example of the Pal 37. Looks like a fine addition to your collection.

Thank you for posting it.

 

Tony

 

Thank you Tony.My little collection is slowly growing.I'm trying to lay a nice foundation by getting the basic classic ones,then maybe sometime down the road start branching off to some more exotic variants.

[Peter279]

Hello,

 

Thank you for the information.
Does it possible to date this kind of PAL mk2 knife ?

[Frank Trzaska]

PAL Blade Co. had two Navy contracts I know of, June 1943 and December 1943. Made about 135k of the Navy versions.

[Peter279]

Thank you very much Frank.
I thought that PAL started the production earlier.

Does it possible to tell the difference between knives of the first contract and knives of the second contract ?

[Frank Trzaska]

Not that I know of, they are all identical. It was probably a "run on" condition where they just kept making them under a different contract number.

[Peter279]

OK, thank you. I read a post which said that there were two versions: red spacers and black spacers (not certain).

Now I have a dating for my knife. Especially as firms marked mk2 knives on the guards circa mid 1944.
So this PAL knife should date from june 1943 to mid 1944 (approximately).