[Astronomy]

I didn't originally view the picture because I don't do Facebook. After you re-posted the image on the forum, I looked at it. It's a puzzler.

My Randall 16 was ordered to my specs back in '78. The only engraving I had added to the blade were my initials. On my knife, they do not look like the letters on your depicted blade. Specifically, mine were not filled in with that contrasting light color. Thinner font as well.

Perhaps somebody besides the Randall shop added that lettering at a later date?

"Ith."? It might mean something to the person who ordered that engraving... and no one else on Earth.

Nothing SF-related comes to mind concerning "Ith." or "1th." Other than Group numerical designations. All of which likely permutations would require an error in engraving (11th, 5th, 7th, 10th, etc.). And none of which would require inclusion of a "period" as ending punctuation.

The reason I brought up the part about hand filled order forms is because I can distinctly remember filling mine out (little single letter squares on the order form) with a ball-point pen... then sending it off with a check via snail mail. If the customer was a sloppy or careless printer, his desired letters might have been misinterpreted. Maybe he never bothered to send it back for re-work. I waited 5 or 6 months for my blade to show up in the mail. It wasn't a day and age of instant gratification cell-phone & e-mail.

Alternatively... if a previous owner had the engraving done somewhere else, who knows if the local engraver didn't just screw it up? Or that the effort was an attempt at adding false provenance by someone unfamiliar with SOF.