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GERBER Mark II™ PRODUCTION DATE INFORMATION

Production Table Introduction

Date or production tables relate Gerber Mark II serial numbers to the years they were manufactured. Nine major and several minor tables/lists exist. However there are some discrepancies between them. Remember, that in the early years, Gerber did not keep careful records. It was nearly 14 years later in 1981 that a table was compiled by Mr. Doug Hutchens, Survival Knife Historian at Gerber.

I have attempted to use information from the lists to resolve some of the discrepancies, correct a few errors and insert more detail into the table. However there are several serial range differences that I could not resolve.

The Tables/Lists Used to Formulate My Date Table:

  1. 1981 Hutchens Table - Mr. Doug Hutchens held several managerial positions at Gerber and was the Survival Knife Historian.

  2. 1982 American Historical Foundation Table - Probably done by Robert Buerlein

  3. 1984 Pete Gerber Desk List - List found in Pete Gerber Sr.'s desk

  4. 1986 Unknown Origin Table - Table of unknown origin

  5. 1997 Levine List - Published in Bernard Levine's Guide to Knives and Their Values IV. Also found at
    http://www.usmilitaryknives.com/knife_knotes_4.htm (Over half way down page)

  6. 199? Trzaska Table - Gerber_Numbers.jpg - Found at Frank Trzaska's site at
    http://www.usmilitaryknives.com/knife_knotes_8.htm (Over half way down page)

  7. 199? Gerberguy Table - "GERBERGuy's GERBER LEGENDARY BLADES Collector's Website" originally found at
    http://www.gerberknives.com/militarysurvival.htm and archived at
    http://web.archive.org/web/20040113191559/http://www.gerberknives.com/militarysurvival.htm

  8. 199? Frost Matrix - "Gerber Mark II Production History Matrix" by Robert Frost originally found at
    http://home.comcast.net/~rfrost70/Mark2.htm and archived at
    http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:AgzkigcJmRUJ:home.comcast.net/~rfrost70/Mark2.htm

  9. 200? Gerber C.A. List - Info sheet by Donda Burnett, Gerber Consumer Affairs

  10. 2008 Sarasota Info - http://simplysarasota.com/knifecollector/GerberKnifeDates.html

  11. 2/10/09 Sarasota Table - http://simplysarasota.com/knifecollector/Gerber-MkII-Production-Chart.html
Production Number Explanation

Mark II serial numbers were all numeric from 1966 through 1981 and a simple subtraction plus 1 gives the total knives made in a year.

In 1982 an alpha-numeric system was adopted. These serial numbers consist of a single leading letter followed by digits from 0000 to 9999 followed by an "S" or "T". If the leading alpha character doesn't change for the year, again simple subtraction plus 1 gives the total. Note that for some reason no "G" serial numbers were made. Also no records exist for "S/Ns A3012S-A4010S (Ref. Donda Bernet).

When the alpha letter changes during the year, a double calculation is done. Using the 1988 year as an example: F3523S - H4854S indicates that the serial numbers for 1988 start at F3523S and go up to F9999S then switch to H0000 and end at H4854S.

So (F9999S - F3523S + 1) = 6477 and (H4854S - H0000S + 1 ) = 4855

Therefore 6477 "F" knives + 4855 "H" knives gives the total knives made that year as 11,332.



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