After seeing Tom Kendall's recent and most interesting acquisition (and looking through those that I own), I became interested in determining how many different makers we can come up with that utilized aluminum fittings.

Will everyone that owns an Army with aluminum fittings weigh in and give details of your daggers?

Maker and mark? Do they utilize fittings made by EPack? Scabbard maker? Tapered tang?

Just interested in determining how many makers "experimented" by using aluminum fittings and trying to determine the approximate time frame as well.

Thanks.

Hi Denny,
Good topic.I always had questions about aluminum fittings.The one I have is by Carl Julius Krebs.The pummel and cross guard are aluminum,the scabbard is steel.I think the ferrule is zinc(pot metal),it's not steel and doesn't look aluminum.The tang is tapered.Here are a few photos.

Pummel,12 leaves.

Cross guard,2nd style Pack.
Ferrule,7 leaves.

Cross guard and MM.

Parts

Scabbard looks to be WKC.Upper band.

Lower band.

Side

In my collection are:
1. EPack w/2nd style fittings, aluminum. Later tang not tapered. 2nd EPack mark. EPack scabbard, plated. Type 2 grip.

2. Same as #1. type 3 grip.

3. EPack w/1st style fittings, aluminum. Tapered tang. 1st EPack mark. Generic scabbard. Type 2 grip, glass. Pictured on pages 51 & 52 of Wittmann's Army book.

4. EPack w/1st style fittings, aluminum. Tapered tang. EPack scabbard. Type 2 grip.

5. Same as #4. Type 1 (slant) grip.

6. Gustav Spitzer w/1st style EPack fittings, aluminum. Tapered tang. F W Holler scabbard. Type 3 grip.

7. Max Weyersberg w/EPack 1st style fittings, aluminum. Tapered tang. EPack scabbard. Type 3 grip. Makers' mark is stamped perpendicular to the blade spline as opposed to the mark normally stamped in a parallel fashion (along the blade).

Both of the 2nd type EPack aluminum fittings (#1 & #2) are definitely aluminum. I've inspected them from top to bottom and found that they are not any other type of material. Wittmann says in his book that EPack used a lighter base metal that was plated (later during the period). These are not that type as I do own others that match the criteria that Wittmann mentioned, but both of these are aluminum and do not have signs of plating ever having been on them....

Great thread !

What would be interesting is if one (or more) of the guys with a big sampling of daggers would get ahold of a digital scale. I suspect that the various metals used for pommels and crossguards and scabbards would soon fall into ranges that would make them easy to identify.

Dave

I'm an old reloader from wayback. I have an accurate scale and will weigh some parts of all different types and throw that into this mix. Thanks for the suggestion, Dwave. Can you give any info on any other maker?

denny please add

emil voos
and carl schmidt sohn/ taperd tang

Denny: I look forward to hearing the results of your survey. Should be very interesting…

Hello Raymond: That is one sweet dagger. I really like the handwork to the crossguard. I am quite sure you picked it up in Louisville. If you did not, then it has a twin that was there. Very impressive...

Hi Ford,glad you like it.I picked this one up in 2002 at the Big E show in W.Springfield Mass.The one you saw in Louisville must be it's long lost twin.Maybe one day they will be reunited .
I weighted the pummel (16.6 grams) and cross guard (21.6 grams).

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