I purchased these under the impression that they were nickle plated crossguards! When they eventually arrived, they turned out to be of aluminium. I`m pretty certain they`re real, but would appreciate any info regarding them, as I plan to trade them for nickle plated ones. Obviously, I`d first wanna find out if they`re good
Thanks for answer AJ, but as I understand it, and have experienced it, the later RZM types often came out with that recess on the lower guard? In fact, I`ve purchased one or two examples that came directly from the vets, that had those recesses?
Dion, I'm no authority on this but in the past many had assumed that aluminum guards were fake. It is now accepted by some athorities in the hobby that these were indeed mid-period produced.
Hard to argue with a vet who took it in battle and say "Hey, that's not right".
I don't get a good feeling from these. They look too ovoid in shape. The upper casting mark circles are offset from the tang hole. The residual of the circle cast marks looks too defined/raised. The rectangular opening on the lower guard looks too big. It would be nice to compare these with a E W marked real set.
John
John Merling vintagetime@yahoo.com MAX Life member OVMS Life member(Ohio Valley Military Society SOS) OGCA Life member(Ohio Gun Collectors Assoc) NRA Life member
Posts: 1282 | Location: Ohio, USA | Registered: 24 August 2001
Changing my mind on the recess as just realised my RZM 7/85 with aluminium crossguards has a shallow recess for the blade to seat into the casting sprues are located differently to yours so obviously more than one maker/mould existed
Posts: 376 | Location: Scotland | Registered: 19 October 2005
Your pic of those guards are virtually a mirror image of mine? Thanks for posting. Are yours right, did you obtain them from a credibal source? Or do they come off a RZM dagger from your collection?
Dion, Not that it matters but it came from a major collection. You can say it is kind of an unusual NSKK dagger. I sent the whole dagger to Tom Wittmann awhile back. He was very pleased with it and had his photographer shoot it for possible inclusion into his forthcoming book. That was good enough for me.
I don't know about the aluminum cross guards but I see a lot of red flags waving around that NSKK. -Early 1st type high necked grip eagle and blade with aluminum? cross guards and a scabbard with plated fittings-and a rather poor fit -A screw sticking out of the upper fitting-- to allow for a bigger earlier blade to fit a later scabbard? Non factory applied scabbard leather Extensively largely unit marked for no apparent reason Buggered up tang nut Very sharp and thin borders to the scabbard fittings
I have seen a lot of transitionals with mixed parts-but nothing like this. Too much red for me.
MAX & OVMS Life Member, MAX Bd. of Experts. GDC Platinum Dealer. Collector since 1955.
Posts: 6067 | Location: U.S.A. | Registered: 06 March 2001
Just because a item is included in Someone's Book does'nt make it correct. Many vets have told me how they took their prized chained ss or sa dagger right off the dead soldier right after or during the battle. I have always found it hard to believe that a soldier would wear his dress dagger to the front lines and fight wearing it.
Interesting-Several types--but why would an original piece be marked like this? --No presentation is indicated. --Certainly not to indicate unit property -- unless the cross guards are turned around and this designation belongs on the reverse side. But there is no property number-which usually is the case and one would think the font would be the same with all examples. Also they would not be covering the scabbard with leather if unit property. Are these last two sets on daggers or just parts? A lot of unanswered questions. I wonder how many more are out there.
MAX & OVMS Life Member, MAX Bd. of Experts. GDC Platinum Dealer. Collector since 1955.
Posts: 6067 | Location: U.S.A. | Registered: 06 March 2001
These pieces just don't look right. I too have seen and bought a heck of a lot of daggers over the years and these pieces remind me of all the stuff that was floating around years ago being shown from England and Germany and now it's all back on the market floating around again. These guards look to contrived.
Posts: 479 | Location: ohio | Registered: 08 November 2004
Hi I have seen for the first time the M61 Hannover dagger in the book of Dominique Venner "Les armes blanches du 3è Reich" Jacques Grancher éditeur, 1977 page 83. That was a part of the A. Boulanger collection. Cheers
Posts: 35 | Location: France | Registered: 22 January 2006