Gerber Mark II
type of dagger
The Gerber Mark II is a fighting knife manufactured by Gerber Legendary Blades from 1966 to 2000, with an additional limited run of 1500 in 2002, and full production resuming as of July 2008.
Design
The Gerber Mark II was designed by retired Army Captain, Clarence A. “Bud” Holzmann, based the pattern on a Roman Mainz Gladius.
At 12.75 inches (32.39 cm) long it has a 6.5 inch (16.5 cm) 420 HC stainless steel double edged spear point wasp-waisted blade, weighs 8 ounces (226.8g), and has a die cast aluminum handle.
The Mark II has a distinctive look similar to that of the Fairbairn–Sykes fighting knife developed during World War II for the British Commandos.
Vietnam War variant
During the Vietnam War, the first production run of this knife had a five degree offset between the blade and the grip in order to ride in the sheath more comfortably, and give the user a grip similar to that of a fencing foil.
This design feature led to a significant number of knives being returned by users for having a "bent blade", so Gerber discontinued that element on subsequent production runs.
Use
The Mark II was commonly carried by troops for the United States in the Vietnam War, and was second only to the Ka-Bar knife in fame.
In the 1970s, the military's base/post exchanges discontinued selling these knives, reasoning that they were "not in good taste" or "too brutal".
Al Mar, then working for Gerber as a knife designer, added the sawtooth serrations toward the hilt, marketing the knife as a "survival aid", making it more appealing to the PX System, which resumed selling the Mark II as a survival knife, rather than a fighting knife.
Variant
Mark I
The Mark I was a scaled down version of the Mark II. It had a 4.75 inch (12 cm) blade and was marketed as a boot knife.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5550378. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1966, 2000, 1500 and 2002.
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