Dozier Knives

My first Dozier, and still one of my favorite using knives, is a K-7 Slim Outdoorsman with brown jigged bone scales that I bought from AGR many years ago (15-16 or so). Noticed a while back that something looked a little different from the current ones. Finally dawned on me that the thong hole in the handle on mine is not lined---just a hole through the bone and steel. Just curious as to when the liner became standard

The liner is standard on all of the models coming out of the shop, however, AG Russell orders theirs without the thong hole liner on specific models.

Thanks for the response and the info! And thanks for some really great knives.