Can anyone shed light I what I have here? It’s a Model 14 Solingen but without a hump. It doesn’t appear ground down but not 100% sure. The seller called it a “deleted” hump which I’ve never heard of. I hope it isn’t a “humped” knife.

Other particulars, split back Johnson, combo gray stone no writing, unlined thong hole and plugged Micarta.

Thoughts?

I would imagine that it had a hump at one time.

It has a hump, perhaps not as pronounced as some examples, but it is there. The Solingen blades were sometimes lightly reground with most if not all being refinished by the shop. From Germany they apparently were not up to par for what RMK wanted to put out.

Short of someone purposely grinding on the knife which I think you would be able to see, it seems to be fine.

Caveat: would need to examine in hand.

Couple of close up shots of the “hump” area

hard to say 100% without the knife in hand, but judging by the grind marks all over the blade, it appears someone ground the hump mostly off.

Well of course.

During the mid 60s-67, Gary Randall was a shopworker. It was discovered ( see Gaddis ) that just adding a hilt and handle to a Solingen blade was not what the Randall shop would be happy with. So it became necessary to regrind and polish nearly all of the Solingen blades for the models 14 and 15. The good thing for collectors is that no two blades are alike. However this extra effort proved to be an arduous task and not long after , Randall stopped shipping out the Solingen blades, that is until the 80s when they reground the left over blades to look like bayonets and called them the Solingen Fighters.

"'regrind" sounds a bit ominous as though the blade shape was dramatically changed, but the end result of the work done on Solingen blades wasn't as bad as it sounds. 99.99% of Solingen blades look like Solingen blades, so RMK did not change the geometry of the grind as it came from Germany. A more apt way to describe it was the shop "cleaned them up", particularly the final polish. Ultimately what the work done did was reduce the advantage a bit of what the whole purpose of the Solingen blades was, to expedite availabilty and have a cheaper alternative to Orlando forged blades.

Here are a few of great photos of a blade that actually was reground with the end result being a Solingen blade with the appearance of an Orlando forged blade. I have only seen a couple of these over the years. The last photo is a comparison, and you can see what an actual "regrind" looks like.

Joe, is my Solingen 15 a normal regrind? The "hump" (if it is one) isn't shaped like the 14 you show, above.

Steve -

Yours is pretty much within the "normal" range. The knives were finished/completed over a 10+ year period of the Viet Nam war, so you aren't gonna have the same cat doing every one of them. Your knife still has a hump, not as pronounced as the 14 pictured, and to me, appears to be earlier than that sheath, as is the stone. The 1/8" inch hilt material was generally used probably until around maybe 66(?) when RMK went to the 1/4" material used on large blade 14's and 18's. You may find an outlier here and there.

Also, the choil is relatively "square" for lack of a better term, which would indicate little work was done on the knife. If you look at the early Solingen blades when little work is done, if any, the choil is almost a right angle down to the blade.

The information is very much appreciated.

GOOD CALL on the sheath! You are sharp.

Stupidly, after returning from Vietnam, I stored my 60's Randall knives (in their ORIGINAL SHEATHS) in a basement crate with my uniforms. New England basements are humid and even flood occasionally; in my case, the uniforms rotted sometime in the 1970's, as did the sheaths, though the stainless knives survived. I threw out the sheaths (again stupidly?) and ordered replacements. The replacement shown is the waxed version because I didn't want any further rot. (The lower tie-down tab is cut off because I never needed it with this user.)

Thanks, Joe.