Okay, I've been faithfully following the other thread for several days and I want to know more about the last sheath Joe posted.

To me, it looks like a Heiser due to the leather type, tooled edge, center snap placement and the "squared" sheath edge shown in the second photo. The Baby Dot snaps are puzzling. Could the snaps have been replaced down the road after a customer complained that the BB snaps didn't stay snapped or broke? Either that or the photos have been Photoshopped.

JRB...(As long as we are civilly talking)...Just my guess. I dare not list any "reasons" for fear they will be micro-managed>
Best, Capt. Chris
PS: Mitchell: I spent 3 hours, reading & re-reading "all" forum threads-n-posts since I left foe Bama. Thanks, along with "DW" for riding rein...CCS

JRB

tom -

you beat me to it. I had a whole intro typed up for Part II and come back to the computer and wa la! You did it for me.

First I want to address what you stated above.

The "tooled" edge on the sheath above does have similarities in appearance to a Heiser although not as distinct in my opinion. Many JRB's have the edge on the sheath above. This comes down to you have to know what you are looking at.

Also, the same applies to the leather. I have handled more sheaths than I can remember and for the vast majority of the time, there is a distinct difference. I will say that as the company changed hands for the third time by 1958 to become HKL, I guess you could make an argument that perhaps the quality might not be what we would expect from items produced earlier, but the basic composition of what they were doing was the same.

Now the snaps. It is on record that Johnson came up with the Baby-Dot snaps after HKL was for all practical purposes out the door as a supplier to RMK. Gaddis states HKL didn't have the capability for the snaps anyway. We'll revisit this later.

So here we have a sheath that for the time being has one trait that ONLY Heiser used according to some folks, and that is keeper snap placement.

I will reiterate so no one is mistaken, that photos cannot tell 100% of the story.

Anyway, I am glad to see someone has an opinion.

Joe:
Although it may not be original..."orange stone"?
Best, Capt. Chris

Used to keep the pouch shape intact. I geneally don't store vintage stones in the pouch unless I wrap them in plastic wrap. The often get gobbed up with verdigris if they haven't already.

Thanks Joe. It's an interesting sheath no doubt. Do you have a photo of the back of the sheath?

Let's start this one off on the right track and keep it that way. Let's remember also these are knife sheaths, not state secrets we are talking here.

This is about a class of sheaths, Johnson BB's, a sub-class of the iconic Baby Dot sheath. Now granting that there is a large supply of HKL sheaths we will say made after the 1958 sale of the company making it the Heiser-Keyston-Lichtenberger (Saddlery) Company, there is also a secondary smaller supply of BB sheaths made by Maurice Johnson that by all accounts was a relatively short run. It is my opinion that MJ using HKL sheaths as a model, initially made a relatively close copy (not exact and limited by machinery and materials used) of the sheath which in a very short time, probably a matter of months, began to morph into the familiar Johnson Bay Dot sheath.

There is a camp of collectors that believes there is a distinct break or delineation between these sheaths that is so clear and concise that no variables exist. No sheaths that even might be questionable. To this camp there is no overlap period where Johnson was coming up to speed, making dies, getting leather, just setting up his shop. This camp wants the proverbial line in the sand drawn if you will. I am saying not so fast, and the answer may be a bit blurry.

No one had really put much time into this subject until the last couple of years, and much more so in the recent past. The old school of thought was an RMK stamp meant a MJ sheath and we were good with that. I think that position has been debunked and corrected to include a large sample of HKL sheaths made over a 3-4 year period from the late 50's into the early 60's. But some of the attributes when it comes the Heiser vs. Johnson debate, really two actually, that the detractors it seems solely base their position on is stamp orientation and snap location.

I will try and present photographic evidence that makes a case for some of what are determined to be HKL sheaths by some folks may in fact be early MJ BB sheaths. I have examined many but not all of the sheaths pictured so while a hands on examination is the best way to determine what is what, sometimes that isn't possible, so the photos will have to do. You can be the judge.

"Line in the sand"...hmmmm...I think that is difficult. Over the past day I have read a good amount of this copy. Sheath stamp and exactly when Maurice Johnson began making sheaths for Randall are 2 very "blurry" lines.
One "camp", as you call it Joe, doesn't care to believe Randall's statements that Heiser did not have a sheath stamp. That "camp" also wants to hold to actual fact that, because the statement came from the Randall shop, Maurice Johnson couldn't have made sheaths for Randall until 1962 or 63? I think there is plenty of "blur" on the line in the sand.
Good topic, all & all, Capt. Chris
PS: Edited to say...I'll be away from my desk (Day trip to Orlando) until early evening. Please, I only ask for a civil conversation. Please keep it that way.
Thanks, Capt. Chris

In the original thread, I brought up the mottling of the leather of the 1-8 sheath that is so typical of many Johnson's, but not so much Heiser. In fact, being sourced from different suppliers, the Heiser mottling is much less apparent over the course of their run not only in numbers but in "severity". I didn't even go to file photos for Johnson examples, I just went to ebay and I think I found these on the first page. I didn't even have to try. So the argument made by the other camp in the original thread doesn't really hold water.

I want to quote a snippet from what I wrote for the RKS newsletter in 2003:

"One final consideration is the difference in the leather used by Heiser and Johnson. Most Heiser leather tends to have a higher luster like shoe leather and tends to be less supple whereas the Johnson leather is not quite as “fine” of finish and tends to be supple."

So this is not something I recently pulled out of my rear end.

The 1-8 first followed by the random picks.