To address what I believe the question was, (the plausibility of provenance) I would say the knife fits well in the time frame and the documents appear original. Although not enough to unquestionably link the knife to the man, it's enough to certainly warrant digging a bit deeper, and a better start than no provenance at all. The shape of the blade of course is apparently altered, but not a far cry from what a marine raider might visualize as the perfect combat knife.

Ahhh Wally....good point about what a Marine Raider might visualize. Or in this case maybe a Force Recon Marine in Vietnam, Republic of.

I'm not a Raider or Recon, etc. but I actually like the knife with the altered lines.

Dave has one for sale from the 1940's on his Nordic Knives site that has a similar grind. Maybe like you said some Marine just wanted the old timey grind. Nice old fighter in any case, if it could only talk.

OK so it may be a theatre mod, that could be making a story to fit but it would seem unlikely (IMO) that you would take that much material from a blade merely "cleaning it up" and if it was damage removal it must have been a hell of nick!! So the other side of the coin is that it was damage and it took a few tries at getting the balance right.

I've got the knife in front of me as I write this and on close inspection the blade doesn't seem to have any major surface corrosion and the stamp is pretty crisp so I'd go with damage correction or deliberate modification.

On another train of thought how much material would frequent (possibly over zealous) sharpening remove? I know I've seen old pocket knives with blades that are hardly still there reasonably often. This may tie in with the original stone being replaced, I heard the ones around this era were a bit soft too.

The original owner was Gunnery Sergeant Leonard H Smith 614489/6713 1st Marine Aircraft Wing. How would I go about seeing if he was still contactable today? Tall order I'm sure but may be worth the effort.

I recently researched a Vietnam era knife, and found and spoke to the original owner. A lot of Google searching helped find some info, but a private investigator (licensed) actually tracked down the individual. Some times, it may be easy, sometimes it may be impossible.

Check the "Find a grave" website. It's a good start.

Cheers Ronnie.

Just tried that......The name Smith doesn't help!!

Do you know what city he lived in? Do an obituary search.

I will get on my Militaria forum and see if someone can help me find some info and let you know what I find.