Hi guys, here is one of my latest additions to my collection of heer daggers. It's a very nice early army dagger by Puma. It has a personalized crossguard and a great slant grip. It also has the rarely seen aluminum fittings. The hand enhanced crossguard and pommel are great. Just look at the feathers of that bird! The pommel is also very nice. You can tell a lot of work went into that. Enjoy the pictures.

Danny

More pics

Wow Danny! This is an awesome dagger! Early, personalized AND a very rare aluminum fitted slant? (this is only the third aluminum fitted SLANT I have seen) Love it! Congrats! Kevin.

Beautifully detailed aluminum fittings and killer personalization. Great army dagger!

Puma assembled a fine army dagger and this one is top notch. The true aluminium Pack 3rd fittings are rare enough but to have them matched to a slant grip is very unusual, Puma appears to have mixed and matched on these, Wittmann has another with an early trademarked blade and yet a later type B grip. ( http://www.wwiidaggers.com/34013.htm ). Great addition Danny.

I own a twin of the one shown above.

Jon, I see Witties Aluminum Puma has the non diamond mark..usually consider these Alum pieces to be early, wonder if his is a tapered tang? Have you ever see a slant Puma with the cat without the diamond mark? Saw one once with WKC initial fittings and that mark on a non tapered tang. Couldn't accept it in that config but have wondered about it?? SO many variations out there... Kevin.

Danny, Wanted to ask if this example has a scabbard that is about a half inch shorter than your others?? I have an example that looks just like yours as far as the screw and band configuration..it is the shortest scabbard I have seen! Kevin.

Kevin,
My personal opinion is that these aluminium hilted daggers were manufactured and released in 1936, which is why they can be found with variant Pack 1st / 3rd cross-guards and the occasional slant and non slant grips and transitional trademarked blades. Puma I suspect just held a stock of early and slightly later parts, a bit like we see with some early Eickhorns, hence the mix of some confusing configs. It would be interesting to know if that one on Toms site is a tapered tang or not.
The small diamond Puma is the earliest trademark as far as I can remember, with the non-diamond only used for a short time in 36, although I could be wrong?.

Once have had a PUMA with slant grip and leightweight but heavily silvered grip fittings. The scabbard did show typical hand enhancement.
Regards,

Thanks alot for the kind comments guys. Very informative too. Kevin, I compared the length of the scabbard to some others. The puma scabbard is in fact a little shorter than the others but not much.

Danny

Danny, I thought it might be, I have MANY heer daggers and this is the only one with a shorter scabbard..Kevin.

An earlier post re: Puma

Link