Well Boys!! I am 60. When I started there were no books, no information, no computers, but a lot more veterans who GAVE there daggers to kids and there were SEVERAL in my school who collected. Mainly from their fathers, one kid had 4 paratrooper helmets and 6 Imperial Breast Star medals. We even had one kid who had an Eickhorn catalog.
My first dagger was a Pack ground Rohm, but we didn't know what the name was removed for or who it was.
The good thing was that there were no fakes.
We went to our first "gun show" in 1959. I was 14 and saw my first experience with dealers. I watched a "dealer" who was a gun man cut cufftitles off SS uniforms and exchange broken parts on daggers. You remember these things at an impressionable age!!
A couple of years later, I saw my first Atwood fakes at the same show and bought a couple of Paul Seilheimer engraved post war bayonets as original.
So even when your young, things make an impression on you.
Too bad you guys didn't have those early experiences to guide you in today's market place or have the knowledge that you can only learn first hand as the fakes appear..
So make fun all you like, but I've been there and seen that.
As far as blade replacement is concerned even today, a TM piece will ALWAYS sell faster than an unmarked piece and SEVERAL original, unmarked Horster 2nd Model Rails have had their blades replaced with a TM one. In those early years dealers didn't know better nor did they ever think collectors would become that educated to LEARN FROM EXPERIENCE.
Been there and Seen that.
Ron Weinand
Weinand Militaria
