Gentlemen,

let's have a short travel through time.

Left to right:

- early Prussian naval dagger ca.1820
- Prussian 1848 pattern
- Imperial Cadet Seitengewehr 1872 pattern
- imperial dagger for sea cadets 1890 pattern
- Imperial dagger for Sea-officers 1901 pattern
- short Imperial dagger for Sea-officers
- Naval dagger of the prov. Reichsmarine from 1919
- Naval dagger 1921 pattern
- Naval dagger 1929 pattern
- Naval dagger 1938 pattern

Thanks for looking.

Best; Hermann

That is what collecting is about!!!

Beautiful circle Hermann,the Navy design is one of the nicest.
Can you please show us close pictures one by one if is possible?

Thanks

... so sorry, Stingray, but I can't.

A few of these daggers are in Vic Diehl's and my book, the German publisher 'Motorbuch' is a little bit strict with showing stuff from the book in detail.

Two others are shown right now in an article, same situation. RWM Depesche

Sorry again.

Kindest regards;
Hermann

Nice

Wow very nice indeed

Great collection, Hermann.

John

Those are some great navies Hermann! Thanks for showing.

Danny

... thanks for your kind words.

I forgot to mention one dagger, the real Amazone dagger.

This is indeed a rare piece, FW stands for Friedrich Wilhelm, who ruled for his brother in 1859. Weapon No. 5 and an early Prussian navy acceptance.

True German history.

Thanks for looking.

Best; Hermann

Very nice pieces Hermann.

Thanks for sharing.

Best,
Oleg.

Wonderful display Hermann! I realy like the one with the blued background on the etch..realy stands out! Kevin.

Hermann, for us Navy collectors that is the rarest of the species. Can you please comment on why the traditional cruciform daggers with the twisted wire wrapped grip are also referred to as an Amazone dagger?
Thanks and kind regards, Rick

Rick,
yeah, I'll try.

Basically it is relatively easy to understand.

In the very early 1970's Jan Pieter Puype, a researcher and museum director from the Netherlands, started an article in the German 'Deutsches Waffen Journal' about the developement of German Naval daggers. I do own this article. Very informative and well written.

One have to realize that in those days no fast worldwide communication was available. No email, no Skype, just the good old postal service. Sending photos over the Atlantic was quite difficult and took a long time.

Just a few of these early daggers, as shown on the left in the photo in my first post, were known to Puype. He had no real idea to which German fleet he could attribute this daggers to. Seriously there was no real fleet in the beginning of the 19th Century in Germany, just a few ships. More than this, there was no Germany as we know it today. :-) So it was really puzzling for him.

Puype had a regulation from January 4th, 1844, regulating a "dagger-like Hirschfaenger" for the officers of the "Amazone". So he had the idea these early pieces could be Amazone daggers.
It was just a theory offered by him. But from this moment on all the early daggers were labeled 'Amazone-daggers'.

Coincidentally I was able to find this Hirschfaenger and he was exactly as described in 1844 and marked accordingly. It is a military Hirschfaenger, dagger-like because we see two more or less sharp edges, which we usually do not see on Hirschfaengers. The markings dates this artefact exactly. So we had the drawing, the Regulation and the weapon. This weapon was the beginning of Vic's and my work, we always had the feeling we should explain this rare weapon correctly. That is what we did in our book.

This will not change the shape of the blue planet, but it was fun to add the informations to the knowledge base.

Thanks for looking.
Best;
Hermann

... to add another rare dagger which is known to the collector community. On the Prussian ships in the early 19th Century we had also young 'Eleven', cadets, sometimes not older than 12 or 13yrs.

They carried also daggers, here is one. Please notice the blunted tip, this was to avoid serious wounds if it came to trouble between those Teenagers.

Because of the nickelplating of the grip wire, a technique dating back to the early 1840's, we are able to date this dagger very well into the time of the 'Amazone' ship.



Thanks again for looking.
Best;
H.

Hermann,
Thank you so much for the well written explanation. One has to admire the tenacity of the early researchers. We owe them and yourself a tremendous debt of gratitude for freely sharing your hard work and knowledge so that we can more fully appreciate this fascinating hobby.
Kindest regards, Rick

Gentlemen,

thank you so much for your kind words. It was always a pleasure to work with Vic and other authors like Tom Johnson and Tom Wittmann.

Navy daggers are so interesting because there is never an end with obtaining new informations and ... daggers.

If one is interested in the early design developements, here is an article written by Vic.

Thank you again.
Best;
H.

Thank you Hermann for a very interesting and informative post!

Great job Hermann and super nice pieces, thanks for sharing


Regards