Alox SAKs with “MATT” engraving inside?

[gustophersmob]

I saw these Reddit posts and it appears that many people have been finding what appear to be crude looking engravings of “MATT” and/or “SP” inside their alox SAKs. It include silver and colored ones and 84 and 93mm frame sizes. The only common denominator appears to be that all the examples are of relatively recent manufacture.

https://old.reddit.com/r/victorinox/comments/1j0of61/who_or_what_is_matt/

https://old.reddit.com/r/victorinox/comments/1j0dlj7/i_think_someone_grafitied_the_scales_during/

I don’t have any alox new enough; has anyone here found this?

I seriously doubt “MATT” is a name (is Matt a common diminutive in Switzerland?)  Some of the redditors theorize it could be the German for matte, but that doesn’t check out with my translation app, so idk.

[nate j]

Newish Cadet and Swiss Army 7 did not have this, as best I can tell without removing the scales.
 

[Huntsman]

Fascinating stuff

Read through one of the posts - Seems like it is quite common
Sometimes MATT SP and more often just SP - But plenty of times nothing !!

But more common that just a factory worker having a laugh graffitti-ing

Very strange!!

[gustophersmob]

I  have some mid aughts farmers with counting hashes in the scales, I remember there was a discussion somewhere here on those. Those look more like scratch lines in the scales, not done with an electric engraver. Whatever they are for, it seems to make more sense than “Matt”.

This is a bad pic I tried to capture of the lines I’m talking about.

[nate j]

I  have some mid aughts farmers with counting hashes in the scales, I remember there was a discussion somewhere here on those. Those look more like scratch lines in the scales, not done with an electric engraver. Whatever they are for, it seems to make more sense than “Matt”.

This is a bad pic I tried to capture of the lines I’m talking about.

IIRC, those were for tracking which line/machine the scales came from, to make a tooling wear/QC issue easier to track down. Can’t remember if that was confirmed or just a theory, though.
 

EDIT:
Found the old thread.  Apparently it was just a theory, but it seems like a sound one to me.

https://forum.multitool.org/index.php/topic,27405.msg482143.html#msg482143

 

[gustophersmob]

Following up on this. Apparently a redditor got a reply from Victorinox about the “MATT” and “SP” markings.

The markings on the back of the aluminium scales are part of our quality control system. Certain information (MATT, SP) about materials or suppliers is left on the scales during production so that any anomalies that occur at a later stage can be traced.

https://old.reddit.com/r/victorinox/comments/1jrdqc5/matt_and_sp_scale_markings/

[nate j]

Interesting.  Thanks for solving the riddle!