I was fortunate enought to see the sword laying on top of the dealers display case at the MAX and he gave me the opportunity to examine it. I first noticed what Jim M. says the unusual shade of blue in the "panel". However what really caught my eye was exactly what Fred mentions about the letter spacing. And no, Fred was not there when I examined it. I don't know enought about lettering to tell anything except when Fred just mentioned it here...it's axactly what I thought when I looked at the blade. That I have never seen that type of wide spacing between lettering in any 3rd Reich blade. And the spacing in the word "Ehrenpreis" IMHO is outrageous. Thank you Houston for posting images of the one you used to have. On yours the engraver solved the problem of the "Ehrenpreis" spacing by adding additional scrool work to either side of the word. Maybe "Damast" has an example that he can show us that has similar characteristics so we can hope to make a comparisson.
