Joe,

What you're overlooking or ignoring is that Heiser, HKL and Johnson all had different sheath workers, sewing machines, patterns (Heiser & HKL for sure) and leather lots. Constistency was not maintained over time. Let's address all your "evidence":

1. Leather type: No different than many known Heisers (As I mentioned, each company had different leather lots that varied in condition irrespective of the tanning process. I've seen the most inconsistence with Heiser / HKL).
2. Leather mottling: Heiser had it too! Look at my photos below.
3. Stitching on the front: I see no difference between the stitching on your example sheath and a number of known Heisers!
4. Stitching on the butterfly: Ditto!
5. Lack of edge tooling: Oh it's there if you look hard enough! You just picked a sample with a weak impression.
6. Different die to cur sheath: I addressed this above. Also, the two 3-6 sheaths below are not cut from the same die many others were (I should know).
7. Lack of throat flairs: For the most part those went away in the early 50's. Again, look at my examples below: See any throat flares?

All I can see you doing is grasping at straws! There is too much real evidence out there to support the theory you're trying to tear down (i.e. the e-bay Heiser auction and the consistency of the snap placement between Heiser-HKL and Johnson.

We had an exchange on this thread back on May 8th 2013!. At that time I couldn't figure out why you took the position you did because I know your a smart guy. Your response was " I have never said Heiser did not make the sheaths, and in fact am aligned with what the 'preponderance" of evidence suggests. I even called it in print BEFORE you or anyone else jumped on the bandwagon. It wasn't until the sample sheath auction that you guys jumped on and made an issue of it."

Now we're re-hashing it again! Unbelievable!