V-42 stiletto V-42s procured by the U.S. Navy were the only known V-42 knives sent to a unit or branch outside the First Special Service Force. The V-42 was depicted on the badges of the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, Canadian Forces' Joint Task Force 2 and one of the United States Army Special Forces badges. W. R. Case & Sons Cutlery Co. manufactured a post-war version from 1989 until 1993. The V-42 weighs , with either a or long blade and handle, for a total length of approximately . Its features included a double hollow-ground, stiletto-type blade equipped with a thumb-imprint
Stiletto heel popularity in the 1950s, they reached their most refined shape in the early 1960s, when the toes of the shoes which bore them became as slender and elongated as the stiletto heels themselves. As a result of the overall sharpness of outline, it was customary for women to refer to the whole shoe as a "stiletto", not just the heel, via synecdoche ("pars pro toto"). Although they officially faded from the scene after the Beatle era began, their popularity continued at street level, and women stubbornly refused to give them up even after they could no longer readily find them