3 Finger Louie was kind enough to sent me that Eickhorn blade with the Arrow/Target logo for examination.

Bottom line - It is the remains of a real blade with a fake trademak addition and a fake motto. I will support this statement with photos, but anybody with a different opinion can chime in.

First the motto

It is over 40 mm from the crossguard. Most daggers are 25mm or so. Eickhorn Rohm/Himmlers are up to 35 mm. This is way too far

The letters are sometimes close to real mottos, but not close enough. Not the wedge shaped dot for the "I"

The motto etch has had paint added. I cannot capture that with my camera, but you can see the paint is flaking off on the spine.

The blade is visibly narrower than an untouched Eickhorn blade. Louie's blade is on the left. It is lighter too.

Dave:
I see no evidence of crossgraining. Is this perhaps a SA blade that was carefuly ground down and re-etched? I posted too quickly please feel free to remove this and I'll re-post when you're done.
Jim

My opinion is that the arrow/target trademark was added later than the line above it, but was done ineptly. It is canted and of uneven depth

The tang has been ground on all 4 sides.

But, for all the surgery on the blade, I think it is the remains of a real 1937 transitional Eickhorn blade with the squirrel ground off.

See below. The spacing is right and the remains of the Eickhorn upper line look correct.

That's it. If my guess is correct, someone sure tore up a real blade for a bad fake.

Daev

Dave--why do you think the blade is real? Looks like a total fake to me. The narrow blade width near the cross guard is always a BIG red flag. Most fakes have this trait.

Houston,

Look at the remains of the original trademak and then what I posted as a real one. I think it was once a real blade that was buggered up on the front side and severely resurfaced - which it became thinner, then redurfaced in back with the phony arrow/target added.

I'm with Houston on this one, (for now anyways) but you make a valid point about that RZM looking older. I just don't like the motto part. if it is filled in with paint now, why not just fill in the original etch if it was bad instead of grinding it down and remaking the whole thing?

Thanks to Dave and 3FL for a couple of very interesting and informative threads. Thanks, JohnJ

Thanks for the analysis. Maybe the edge was beat up, so they had to put a new edge on it, making the blade narrower. Shame if it was a real blade destroyed. The RZM part does look right on.