The ones we don't talk about.

jalind · **Reply #30 on:** October 07, 2016, 06:28:55 PM

Quote from: JNOXID on October 07, 2016, 12:47:33 PM

This USA made Imperial is not SAK clone or copy, it just uses well known appearance.

The mfg year stamped on the tang looks like 1964, which is consistent with the stud on the bottle opener. It's a U.S. military MIL-K-818 with civilian scales. Has two dead giveaways if you know what they are, and how I immediately knew what it is. The stud on the bottle opener wasn't for opening the bottle opener blade, it was "to assist in the taking down of small arms", most notably the Springfield '03 and M1 Carbine, plus others. It was eliminated in 1972. With all the weapons I field stripped over the years, I never needed a short stud like that, so it probably wasn't essential, but helpful. The other is "can opener" stamped into the can opener. The original designers thought soldiers and marines wouldn't know what it was for if they didn't tell them. I don't recall anyone ever having to tell me what the can opener was for, or how to use it. It was rather intuitive. Undoubtedly a casual observer in the engineering department where they designed and tested it in 1943 probably asked, "What the Hell is THAT for?" and the rest is history. They were often called a "Demo Knife" because they were part of an infantry platoon's demolition kit. If there was anything went missing from that kit, the knife was the first thing to disappear. The MIL-K-818 weren't issued to individual soldiers like the Swiss, German, Dutch and other armies do with their utility knives. Company (and higher level) supply sergeants could requisition them as needed, and the cost comes out of the unit's budget for non-expendable supplies. In my 20 years I never directed any be requisitioned, and if my supply sergeant(s) did get some, it was no more than a few. You could also buy them at the clothing sales store, if they were in stock, just as you could buy replacement canteens, entrenching tools, ammo pouches and other battle rattle items if the ones you had been issued for use while assigned to your unit were lost, damaged or destroyed due to carelessness or negligence.

Imperial was one of a half dozen or so companies that made millions of them for Uncle Sam from 1944 into the mid 1990's. Schrade is among them. Camillus is probably the best known company in later years and Ontario Knife Company made a MIL-K-818D for a few years after Camillus closed. The MIL-K-818 were designed and first produced in 1944. Imperial was one of the first companies to make them during the war in partnership with Kingston (those have the Kingston name on them). Post war, the various companies making them over the years leveraged on their major parts fabrication and made more millions of them for the retail market with civilian scales, often bone, antler, horn, or Delrin, and sometimes stainless steel. I saw them by droves as a Boy Scout and later in the military, either a MIL-K-818 or one like yours with civilian scales. They were ubiquitous. In my scouting era, if a Boy Scout had a pocket knife, 10:1 odds it was one of these MIL-K-818 knives in civilian scales, with an occasional one in stamped and rolled stainless steel military scales.

Yours is in superb condition considering it's over 50 years old. I've attached a photo I found of two MIL-K-818 knives (they're not mine). The upper one is an Imperial made during the stud era prior to 1972, and the lower one a Western made after the stud was eliminated in 1972. The resemblance to yours is more than striking.