Interesting pair of Eickhorn army daggers every part is of the earliest vintage representing Eickhorn’s initial production run of army daggers the pommels – crossguards and scabbards are a brass base. Note the type-1 Eickhorn guards - scabbards with the early style bands and double flat head screw configuration and very early pommel type and of course the early double oval maker marked blades both have the raised CE on the tapered tang. They are exact twins in every way except condition. While neither dagger is mint what one dagger lacks the other has. I will call the denazified army Eick-1. Eick-1 has a minty blade while Eick-2 has a heavily smudged blade rating good at best. Eick-1 of course is denazified while Eick-2 has a beautiful complete guard. Eick-1 has a dent in the lower scabbard while Eick-2 is dent free but with one replaced scabbard screw. Both daggers have beautiful damage free slant grips that have toned to a deep orange-red and beautiful hand detailed early pommels. Eickhorn was certainly one of the most prolific army dagger producers but In 15 years I have only seen a handful of Eickhorn Slant army daggers they are extremely difficult to come by.
Eickhorn Slant-1

MMM-MMM Good Tom! Remember just a few years ago people were wondering if there WAS such a thing as slant gripped Eickhorns!! And you have rolled over three! Quite amazing really. They are both beauties that represent the earliest examples of a very common Heer maker in a very UNCOMMON configuration. I know you have had them both apart to check the tangs, have you assembled the primo parts from both just to see the result?? Must admit I would probably do it just for fun but keep them in original config for good, as you would too of coarse!(but then again these early ones go together so tight they might not fit together in non original config?) Can look at these wonderful slants in your GREAT pics all day long Tom! Kevin.

Glorious Tom, and hats off for resisting the temptation to fiddle or swap out parts. You already know my views on altering anything that has remained together for 70+ years and to change anything about either of these two would be sacrilege in my eyes.
Each daggers wear and condition tells it's own story and to see them reunited, with almost matching patina and toning is a joy.

Striking, your photography also does them justice, especially against that black background.

As always your photography is outstanding.

...and for the rare birds, who wouldn't be envious. Those are some very fine looking Eicks. They would be a welcome addition to any collection.

Rich

Many thanks for the comments guys one of things that make the hobby fun is sharing your items with other collectors who love the stuff as much as you do.

More pictures of Eick-2

Beautiful Eicks, Tom.

John

Yes Tom,that's some beautiful armies with amazing grips.


Stingray

WOW! Fantastic pieces. Thanks for sharing.

Danny

They look absolutely gorgeous Tom. issues like a less than brilliant blade are not really relevant on daggers like this. On some late thing with generic fittings they need something to sell them but these both look wondeful. Love your photography!

OOh they are very very nice.

Gratzz on a fine pair of Squirrels. I think the grips are ace.

Frank

Fantastic daggers!! here's mine

P.S. must learn to take photos like you

Great example!! Thanks for sharing

That's a nice looking one Seany!! Kevin.

Beautiful daggers Gentlemen, thanks for showing them!

What I find interesting is that all of these Eickhorn slant grips have toned to the same kind of colour, I don't think I've seen any other colour on these, later Eickhorn grips seem to range from yellow to dark red...

Red

What a great dagger Seany! I've been searching for a dagger like this for a long time. Congretulations en thanks for sharing.

Danny

Thanks for the nice comments guys this was an ebay purchase a few years ago.shame you can't get them on there any more

great daggers, here are my early Eickhorn with slanted grip
regards oliver

pic four are all 4 Eickhorn crossguards

Oliver wonderful Eickhorn Slant and Eickhorn army daggers thank you for posting these.

Just outstanding!

A fine showing of army daggers that anyone would love to have!

PVON

Oli, that is a superb Eick slant!! Very nice personalization and condition and patina look top! Great that you have been able to collect all the guards to..Good show!! Kevin,..

I'm green with envy Tom.

Frank

Frank- Thank You it is quite the pair

Photography as always is great and without a doubt fantastic early Armies. The color of those grips are stunning to say the least! Thanks to all for sharing.

WW2- Dear God that is an INCREDIBLE Eick. slant.

Jaw dropping…

Congrats,
Johnny

Some beautiful Eickhorn slants shown here. Instead of starting a different thread I decided to keep this one going. I have spent quite a bit of time recently restoring my topics/threads I created. I picked this Eickhorn up a while back. Beautiful condition throughout with all brass base fittings and scabbard. Guess you can not have too many Eickhorns....

Very nice indeed!

Tom

Since you really have taken a liking to the slants can you tell us if most come with orange handle,pumpkin orange,
or glass grip or how about white!

Any pattern to them?

PVON

In my experience most slants are various shades of orange rarely towards red. You do see yellow slants from time to time most I have seen were SMF. The only white slant I have seen would be Ivory and of course these are extremely rare probably seen a few over the years. Never seen a glass slant but have a dagger I picked up at the max with a glassy type slant grip oddly I have another by this maker with a glassy type slant as well so that’s interesting. If you study the slant grips and compare them they do exhibit notable dimensional differences as well as cosmetic (rib style-etc) they are certainly not all the same! One maker I recently noticed the grip overhangs the grip ferrule by far more then any other need to look into this as see if this trait spans the makers early production. One day I will get all mine together and do an in depth study likely some grip traits can be attributed to certain makers. Of course you see some darker on one side then the other - like any army grips storage parameters and plastic composition seem to be the big factor in determining color and I do believe they all started white but let’s not discuss this in this thread…..

That's a great looking Eick slant, condition looks great too. Congrats Tom! Kevin.

EICKHORN, all silvered brass, slant grip, a true gem and especially rare. Even more in this perfect condition it is a pleasure to see! Thank you for showing.

Generally there are "all brass" daggers with slant grips and there is another group which has leightweight fittings. Do you think they were produced together at the same time or one kind before the other?

Regards,

Wotan IMO the brass base daggers came first-pieces that have the brass scabbard as well are the earliest and are seldom encountered most have the brass based hilt fittings with a steel based scabbard. Concerning early daggers with lightweight fittings several come to mind – Pack with their satin aluminum hilt fittings (never plated) and SMF used a lightweight base metal they silver plated IMO in an attempt to make the dagger lighter and hence more desirable in the market place. Klaas adopted a plated lightweight base metal as well my guess would be sometime in 1936 as initial production Klaas are brass based hilt fittings. Seems WKC experimented with a lightweight base metal as well what’s considered the WKC type 2 are generally found in the lightweight base metal. Of course Pack went to a lightweight base metal on their 3rd design. More times then not these plated lightweight base metal hilts show plate lifting as the base did not hold a silver plate well over time.

WW2 Collector thank you for sharing your opinion based on your experience and knowledge. I also thought (but had no experience) that the all brass daggers are the most early ones.
Interestingly the heavily silvered leightweight fittings were used by more firms we commonly might think, I have or have had them eg. on my HARTKOPF, a PUMA and a PLÜMACHER.
Regards,