"If Frog Prinz actually had any experience with these daggers, and not just photographs of them, he'd know that these are NOT engraved (none of them), but acid etched. How many have you actually held in hand, Frog? Don't make me chase you down with my Segway! ? Gailen knows I can do it! I'm dying to know who you are anyway. Seriously, lets do lunch!"
Craig, I�ve got etched blades from just after WW II, stretching back to two centuries ago. My translation of the above: You have no explanation for what you don�t understand, and you just don�t get it.
But, if you are so confident. Why don�t you (and possibly Grant?) post some really good close up pictures of both of his, and the Gr�ner dagger? And maybe toss in a picture or two of that one on your web site. What could it possibly hurt? And wouldn't that be a good way to demonstrate your expertise?
And let me see if I got it right. Am I supposed to be intimidated by the sight of you on top of a Segway? That's in this universe, right??
"I really believe this: a bunch of dumb counterfeiters got a hold of a box of honor daggers, and screwed them all up (according to the Freds), for no profit motive at all. Sounds reeealllly plausible. With all of these marking tools available, why didn't they spend a whole $10 to mark them so the freds would like them more?"
Well, at least we are agreed on one thing - using your words: �a bunch of half-assed chains�. My point (which you seem to have missed) is that this was a postwar �back room� operation. Proper tooling was easily available - especially to the Gahr firm or any other company in that era that had a few Reichsmarks to their name. But these guys not only lacked a few simple inexpensive stamps. They didn�t even have an adequate amount of round wire, or simple tooling for bending. Did NOT know how to cast silver. Had to cobble together groups of different kinds of parts. Can I stop now - or do you want me to go on?
�More likely: Huhnlein and his staff were in a rush to produce a lot of gifts for high end dignitaries at some NSKK road race, and Huhlnein gave his adjutant his own dagger , and said, hey, get me a bunch of these! And the adjutant did his best, including getting a bunch of half-assed chains copied at some local jeweler in Berlin, and did his best. .............. Not saying this happend in 1939, but it certainly is possible.�
No doubt all of the proof for the above will be included in the latest as yet unpublished manuscripts: �Third Reich Leaders And Their Scramble To Find Last Minute Gifts� . And the companion volume: �The Struggles Of Third Reich Adjutants To Comply With Bosses Requests".
But wait a minute!! That would mean that NSKK-Korpsf�hrer H�hnlein would have to have 15 - 20 (*more ?) Honor daggers in a closet somewhere. Ready to go to the �Berlin Jeweler� to have the work performed. Or did H�hnlein ask the 15 - 20 honorees: �Hey Guys�. �Can I have your daggers for a week or two? So I can get special chain sets made for them, so I can give them back to you at the big race� .
And when he presented them to the honorees he said: �You Heinrich, I really like you, so you get a silver mounted one�. �Fritz, I don�t like you as much as Heinrich, so you get a nickel silver one�. And �Gr�ner, you I don�t like as much as those two, so you get mixed parts�.
* The average survival rate for TR artifacts is how many per cent of a given total? Let�s say that in this case we set it at 20 - 25 per cent as a hypothetical starting point. Does that mean the �Berlin Jeweler� made 80 - 100 of the �H�hnlein� daggers? To get to where we are today, in the numbers reported with those nickel silver center mounts? Hmmmm ........ FP
FP