Victorinox Tang Stamps

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That is great! What year's catalog is this?

[Huntsman]

Hi Team

I updated the first post in this thread with a link to the latest version of the table - With Ulli's permission, of course!

Thanks Ulli - Amazing work       

[kamakiri]

I’ve suspected that the large Elinox tang existed into ‘66 (or later) for a while. Although I’m not ready to publish details yet, it seems they were used into ‘67. I don’t really collect a lot of Elinox knives, so it might be a while before I’d say ‘67 is ‘confirmed’. But I would say that ‘66 is.

[petey.grizz]

Is this the same as the POLDI stamp shown in the chart?

[Nick4]

I updated the first post in this thread with a link to the latest version of the table - With Ulli's permission, of course!

For me the link displays "404 Not Found / The requested URL was not found on this server." 

[jnoxyd]

Is this the same as the POLDI stamp shown in the chart?

I’d like to see what stamp is on the regular blade stamp place, horizontal engraving usually means retailer company name or something like this. Let’s wait when you get it and see blade tang stamps, knife size, tools shape etc.

[petey.grizz]

I’d like to see what stamp is on the regular blade stamp place, horizontal engraving usually means retailer company name or something like this. Let’s wait when you get it and see blade tang stamps, knife size, tools shape etc.

Thanks. I replied to the other thread with pics of the tools and tang stamps and my remedial observations. Would love to have you opinion. Thanks. Tried to link but it was a disaster so it is the Odd Vic? Tang stamp Poldi thread.

[Huntsman]

Hi - The 2017 version is on page three of this post - Reply 73

I will try and see what happened to the link - Looks like Elsinox has changed his website

[Huntsman]

Link in OP updated to latest elsinox site and page

[jazzbass]

Bump from the past....

Someone on Reddit asked about a date for a mid 80s knife and only posted the front tang stamp. Based on that I knew it was an 83-86 knife, but was questioned about that because apparently the info I had isn't on SAKWiki. Posting any detailed info there is a waste, so I thought I'd update this thread. I thought this was documented info but I don't see it on the SAKWiki page, so I took a couple crappy iPhone pics real quick to illustrate.

All of these are variations of the VSSR front stamp.



Stamp A: Wide VSSR/VaOS (1957-1964-ish). This is the earliest VSSR front stamp starting back in the rivetted scale days. The word "SWITZERLAND" in this stamp is 10.5mm wide. Earlier version of this stamp are on unpolished tangs (indicating to me that the blade was hand polished after assembly), while later versions are polished, indicating blade polishing before assembly. I **think** the picture on the SAKWiki tang stamp page for VSSR/VaOS is this one but I can't tell 100%.

Stamp B:  Narrow VSSR/VaOS (1964-ish-1973). This is the second version of the VSSR/VaOS stamp. Almost the same as Stamp A except the VSSR is noticeably narrower (Switzerland is 9.5mm wide vs 10.5mm). The 1966 date on this is an educated guess; about half the knives from the 1961-1968 "small awl and shackle" era are Stamp A and the other half are Stamp B, so I split the difference. If anyone has a better date on this I'd love to hear it. BTW, I've long speculated that the narrows stamp is really the 84mm stamp, and that when the dies wore out instead of ordering different ones for the 91mm and 84mm lines that just started using the same (narrower) stamp for both. Pure speculation on my part.

Stamp C. Narrow VSSR/Blank (1973-1976). This one is one SAKWiki. Not pictured here because its been a long week and I totally forgot to photograph it. As far as I can tell, the front stamp here is the same as Stamp B (narrow VSSR).

Stamp D: Narrow VSSR/OS (1976-1983). Here the front stamp is the same as Stamp B and C, but the back is now "Officier Suisse" with Crossbox and Cross conjoined. This version is not on SakWiki. The VSSR/OS pictured there is Stamp E.

Stamp E: Fine VSSR/OS (1983-1986). This is the stamp pictured on SAKWiki. The differences between VSSR in Stamps D and E are subtle, but there. Most notably, Stamp D is stamped really, really heavy (As are stamps B and C, typically). Also, in most cases in Stamp D the "C" and "T" in "Victorinox" will be linked, as will the "TZ" in "Switzerland". Stamp E is stamped with a lot finer detail - almost like its engraved - and the precision on the letters is significantly higher. The C and T are not linked, neither are the T and Z in Switzerland. The letters in Stamp E have clearly discernible serifs on them, whereas I still debate if the letters on Stamps B, C, and D are seriffed at all. Font-wise, the As and Ws appear to be distinct between the two, with Stamp E "A"s being wider. Finally, the "X" in Victorinox seems to start to the left of the "D" in Switzerland in the earlier stamps, but is in line or slightly to the right of the D in Stamp E.

This picture shows the difference between Stamps D and E side-by-side:

[jnoxyd]

I saw this quite common c.1995 knife on eBay recently and bought it due to its funny stamp. What do you think?

[Huntsman]

Did someone forget to put 'VICTORINOX' in the stamping machine?     

[Huntsman]

.......
Someone on Reddit asked about a date for a mid 80s knife and only posted the front tang stamp. Based on that I knew it was an 83-86 knife, but was questioned about that because apparently the info I had isn't on SAKWiki. Posting any detailed info there is a waste, so I thought I'd update this thread. I thought this was documented info but I don't see it on the SAKWiki page, so I took a couple crappy iPhone pics real quick to illustrate.
........

Thanks JB - Great stuff - Any chance you could update SAKWiki?   

PS. By 'there' I hope you mean Reddit - Not SAKWiki !! 

[jazzbass]

I saw this quite common c.1995 knife on eBay recently and bought it due to its funny stamp. What do you think?

Wow. I've never seen that before. I have seen the "ROSTFREI SWITZERLAND STANLESS" w/o Victorinox on some knives from the early 70s (I have an old Outdoorsman like this) but the back of that tang is blank. Never seen one with the +Officer Suisse back.

Thanks JB - Great stuff - Any chance you could update SAKWiki?   

I can.

[jnoxyd]

  Hi Jazzbass, nice to hear you 
  I think it’s one side of 1976-1982 Hoffritz stamp, just somebody used old punch that should be kept deeply in the safe already more than 12 years. But you are right, it’s really unusual  and I never seen it too.
   Ulli called it “monday stamp”:
“ I spoke many times with victorinox about those tang stamps and the exact time range. Everytime I showed them a special tang stamp or special time range, they answered with "ahh, thats most likely a "monday stamp""... So what do they mean with that. After weekends, holidays or carneval, it happened sometimes that an employee took the "wrong"  tool/stamp or chose the wrong pressure, put the tools the wrong side in. They realised that sometimes fast, sometimes not, so maybe already 5000 blades were made with the "wrong" stamp, for example an elinox stamp instead of an vssr. So what happened next. The employee hat to go directly to the director, karl elsener senior, to tell him about the "problem". And according to victorinox, his answer was always: as long as the knife is functioning fine, just sell them. Who cares about the stamps/non functional parts.”

[Gio_Luso]

jazzbass, jnoxyd, thanks to both.