I'm trying to to sort out knives used during the Nam War. These two Mark II's have dark brown sheaths and made by Conetta and Utica. Were these issued during the Nam War? If they were, why weren't they issued with MK 2 fiber sheaths? During WWII, Mark IIs were only issued to the Navy and the USMC. Were Mark IIs every issued to the Army? In Nam?

For a detailed article on this knife, see Frank Trzaska's article in the January 2005 issue of Knife World (http://www.knifeworld.com/).

 

In short: Production of the "Ka-Bar" style knife was restarted circa 1961 with Utica being the initial contractor. The specifications were basically the same as the USMC 1219C2 including the leather scabbards.

 

The earliest production was brown grip and scabbard. They quickly went to a dark reddish brown known by collectors as "oxblood" which is much darker than is shown in your photo. Later they went to a more true black. If yours are as light as shown in the photo, I am not sure what you have.

 

These were for general issue to all services, and are still issued today.

 

See my notes on the colors and a little more detail at this location on this forum:

http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/ind...showtopic=20399

Thanks, I understand now.