I bought the knife on the right in the late 1970s. It's a U.S. made Ka-bar 1232 which is still in production, albeit in slightly modified form and now manufactured in Taiwan.
The box and papers pictured are original. The long piece of paper has the warranty and registration card on the front and a primer on the basic care and sharpening of knives on the back. The smaller piece of paper is a "note" from Richard M. Wheeler telling the purchaser how glad Ka-bar was about the purchase decision and assuring the customer how serious they were about making a quality product.
The original sheath wore out and was discarded long ago but I purchased a generic sheath for it (not in the picture since it's not original) and used the replacement sheath to carry the knife for years.
Today, I discovered that Ka-bar still sells replacement sheaths for that model, so it will get a new factory sheath (now made in Mexico) before too long to replace the generic sheath it currently wears.
That little 1232 was the first serious knife I bought for myself, and the first fixed blade knife I ever purchased. I still remember looking at it in the display case and admiring the stacked leather handle. The leather disks that made up the stack varied significantly in tone and color when new, and that gave the knife a really attractive look, to my eye.
The blade appears to be plated (maybe chrome?) and the plating has worn off in spots. In spite of a lot of use, the knife still looks good and is certainly just as functional as the day I bought it, around 40 years ago.
The knife on the left was a Christmas present from my wife this year. It's a new Becker Kephart BK62--there's a THR thread about the design of the BK62 for those who are interested knowing more about it.
Anyway, it struck me that these two knives are the only Ka-bars I own, and I thought it was interesting that I acquired them around 4 decades apart.
