hi guys
greetings from italy
could anyone explain me the difference between an ethced and stamped Randall logo?
i mean , i see the difference, but why and when the etched was used and the stamped was used?

thanks for the info
ciao
andy

Most of the etched logos were on the Solingen blades for the 60's and 70's fighters.

I believe Bill is correct. I have some Randall knives from the 1960's. Two have etched logos. One of these is a Solingen; the other has a blade made by Randall; it appears that it was first stamped poorly, then etched over the stamped area.

(I have other knives with etched logos that were made later than the 1960's.)

IIRC... I believe the stamp is struck before final polishing. Sometimes the stamp is nearly polished away. I assume the stamp cannot be applied after polish, so etching is the next step. IIRC...

"Solingen" blades may have been etched before received at RMK (I don't know) but the same holds true, after finishing, etching is the procedure.

The stamping process takes place before it has been tempered. Once that has taken place, the stamp would be destroyed by the hardness of the blade. The Solingen blades had already been thru that process and had to be ground, sharpened and polished, then the etching.

No Wally the Solingen Blades were etched at the Randall Shop after receiving them from Getmany.
Getmany? I wonder if that is near Germany.....

Thanks for the replies guys

I have a n early 90s model 14 with an etched logo.

Early Solingen Blades were stamped in Germany. These blades generally had the stamping on the ricasso running parallel to the hilt.

As the Viet Nam war ramped up and the demand for the blades increased is when the logo etching came to the forefront. Although RMK had the capacity to etch prior to this period and did so on occasion for bad or errant stamps, but never in the quantity in the normal course of fabrication you saw at this time and almost exclusively on these Solingen blades.

As the blades were received from Germany, they often required some level of refinishing to meet RMK standards. So the RMK -Solingen etched logo was added at the typical logo stamp location on the blade.

In addition to the RMK logo etching, you will often see blades from this period (earlier too) with a "West Germany" or "W Germany" stamp on the reverse of the blade, and a "stainless" stamp of the obverse (logo) side of the blade on those models if it hasn't been removed in the assembly and refinish process.

Joe I knew that the Soligen blades had a stamp on them from Germany actually West Germany, but it wasn't the normal Randall stamp. And like you say those stamps were oftentimes removed by shop employees while refinishing the blades in Orlando. Randall had to place the West Germany logo. I've owned serval Soligen Randallas with the West Germany mark still visible and some with it barely visible and some with it completely buffed away.