Pat, I did not start the thread and stand ready to be corrected. But I�m going to make an assumption that this is a continuation of the �Presentation Sword to RK Winner� thread that was started by Craig Gottlieb in March of 2007. As you may or may not recall during the course of that thread an early nickel silver mounted 1st model Luftwaffe dagger with a blued and gold blade presentation inscription blade was introduced on about page six. There was quite a lengthy discussion which I won�t really go into, but have posted a link below for those who may never have read it.
An argument was made that order # 916 (Luftwaffen-Verordungsblatt July 19, 1937) forbade officers (and select others) from continuing to wear the 1st model and they were to instead wear the 2nd model dagger. And that among other things, that it is more likely that if a presentation dagger was going to have been given to an honoree by his fellow officers, it would have been a 2nd model. That conclusion was disagreed with. And I would have to agree with you that with the photograph posted it is really hard to tell just what is being held in the gloved hand.
In the very first image to me it looked like just a small bright area. I would imagine, that in addition to what has already been done, a test scenario or scenarios with multiple daggers with different finishes and the sun high in the sky (etc.) could be conducted to try and more or less exactly recreate the photo. But even then it probably would not have a 100% guaranty of success because of the quality of the original photo. Although myself and no doubt some others already have at least preliminary opinions based upon the data presented to date. Best Regards, FP
RK Presentation Thread
