I don’t see manufacturing to be an exact science and think that “one or all of the above” answers could be correct. Years ago I bought a steel M1A scope mount from Smith Enterprise that they were selling at about half price. When I called to order one and asked “how come so cheap” the guy on the phone said they found a barrel of the mounts in the back of the warehouse that had been left over from an old contract that just needed to be parkerized. So they were parking them on an as needed basis and selling them cheap. Having said that, my theory is that back in 1964 Savage had a crank on the assembly line who said he was going to use an old set of stamps just to mess with these guys in the future who will be talking about it on a thing they’ll call the internet. Point is I think there are a bunch of logical hypotheses and no real way (short of possibly examining the factory records) to prove one correct or incorrect.
