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have in my hand as I write this a Johnson brown button with no model or blade length stamp, along with a late 70's to early 80's Johnson sheath with both model and blade length. There ya go.
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Thanks for info Joe. Johnson apparently did not put any numbers on any of his early sheaths, brown button or babydot. That includes all models not just 1&5s. Mid 1963 is when he began adding numbers...
A babydot Johnson sheath, any model, without numbers is usually pretty precisely dated to first six months 1963 and possibly just the second Q of that year. And of course any Johnson brown button predates the baby dots and would likely be last half 1962 to 1st Q 1963.
Not sure if you are talking about a model 1 sheath in your second point... But only model 1&5 sheaths (which as you know were identical) were altered in early 1970s to have only length stamp. Other sheaths continued to have both numbers.
This is why I speculate that lots of customer questions about ... say ... a model 5 received with a sheath stamped “1” .... caused Mr. Randall to throw up his hands and tell Johnson to leave off the model numbers on 1&5 sheaths.
That said there are always a anomalies as you have pointed out. And of course there could be a gap from when a sheath was made and when it was sold...which could explain older-sheath/newer-knife. Older-knife/newer-sheath likely means replacement.
Regards