U.S. M-3 Fighting Knife. Made by UTICA Cutlery Company of Utica, N.Y. It has a 8 groove leather handle has strong grooves. These show some variation of depth cutting from the manufacturer. The grooves are crisp and appear near excellent. The tang is star peened to the tang. Next to the peened tang is a boldly struck 3/8” Ordnance “Flaming Bomb”, The knife has medium gray Parkerized finish with a shadow of sheath wear on blade flats and wear on it’s edges. The blade is full and has not been G.I. sharpened. The edge of the blade and false edge appears is the original factory “line of white”. It has an early M-8 sheath, which has no metal belt devise. The web belt loop and snap strap are the later war green color and are in nice condition. There is a tiny bit of black finish loss on the end tab, as shown. The plastic finished body is near excellent with just two small spots of wear on it’s reverse toward the metal throat devise. It presents as nearly “matt finish”, as it would come from the factory. This is collector’s quality example of a M-3 with a nice full blade and very nice handle and terrific early M-8 scabbard. 2,590,000 M-3’s were produced during World War 2. The Utica Cutlery Company produced 655,000 knives in blade dated, blade marked and Guard marked variations. They were the second largest M-3 producer with Imperial being the largest with over 850,000 produced. This is a great knife and scabbard. Price: $575.00 (ref. C-334)