Excellent questions and observations. I honestly never understood some of the rationale put forward to explain the bad signatures myself back in 2007 (1st NSKK thread page 3/other). With one of the basic arguments being something like: �Who in their right mind would alter valuable SA Honor daggers?�
One of the problems that confronts especially newer collectors are the conversions of regular daggers into R�hm or Himmler daggers. But with those counterfeits, the fakers at least had one advantage. Namely that the blades were made from conventional steels, and the added etching did not really require a lot of extra work to accomplish.
The big difference of course is that the daggers selected for conversion to the �H�hnlein� daggers are made with Damascus steel. Which presents a unique set of problems when trying to do etching, and especially deep etching to get the signature below the irregular surface of the blade.
The problem of course being that Damascus steel is layered, and the �grain� structure can cause the etching process to get out of control with the harder and softer steels. For example �Numero Uno� may have been one (failed) experiment, and with the �Kassel� dagger - sight unseen who knows?
The most obvious solution of course (at least IMO) for counterfeiters would be to go to mechanical engraving to create the signature thereby achieving the desired depth. And (if needed) an acid wash to try to camouflage the machine tool work.
At the end of the day, the reason all of the signatures are different from each other is due to the nature of the steel, and the process used to create the signatures. Not due to an intentional desired end result on the part of the fakers. FP
