Brian,

These old eyes can't notice any difference. Bo would have tooled up only one source and supplied the brown buttons to both Heiser and Johnson. Because of the set up cost, there would have been a minimum order quantity, and that would have been a large number (Gaddis states that minimum order quantity from the baby dot fastener guy was 100K). A difference in color of the snaps would only have occurred in different batches or runs. The chances that a new batch came in about the same time that Johnson arrrived on the scene is pretty slim. Even if this was the case, Bo would have used all of this inventory before he transitioned to the baby dots and the numbers during that timeframe don't support this. Notwithstanding, Hunt seemed to notice a difference. In his book "Randall Fighting Knives in Wartime" on page 181, he states "Johnson Brown buttons appear to be lighter in color than the ones that we see on Heiser or Moore sheaths". However, his understanding at that time was that all brown button sheaths with Randall logos were made by Johnson.

Gary,

If we use your data points from 1960 to assume Heiser started using the Randall stamp at that time, and the following sequence of events: Gary "discovers" Johnson in the spring / summer of 1962, it takes Johnson a minimum of 6 months to come up to speed and baby dots being introduced in late '62 or early '63, the "vast majority" of brown button sheaths with Randall logos were produced by Heiser.

Best,