Hello?
No one appreciate such a rare find...

Not known for my love of the navies but I think these are some amazing daggers! Kevin.

I could not see all the pictures but the first one is an absolute stunner.

Mark

Thanks Guys, I was feeling kinda lonely here.

I think these are amazing daggers, thanks for sharing it.

That is some dagger thank you for showing it to us.And a Happy New Year to everyone Paul

These daggers are imho very interesting and -against the opinion I have heard from some advanced collectors- I think they were produced in a very limited number during the period (also imho).
But as they were also faked after 45 in a high standard (perhaps under use of surplus parts) I do not know any collector who seriously could tell good from bad. Naturally when a period PUMA blade is used....
I do own about 1700 "...wearing..." pics, I do own photographs of several one-of-a-kind daggers and navies are between the most pictured "in wear" daggers but I do not own one PUMA model nor have I heard of one pictured in wear.
I personally would buy such a dagger only coming directly from the wearer/his family but up to now there didn´t come one along .
Regards,

Paul,

Thank you for sharing your rare & beautiful Puma. Over time, I've observed a small controversy on the Puma maker mark time frame. I have a Puma Naval dagger with sailing ship motif & cat's head without the diamond & always believed that was the earlier used mark. Do you think the diamond mark the earlier Puma maker mark or later maker mark?

Wotan, agreed I have seen some of these that I have believed were post-war put together. They IMHO did not use the right parts to do this and you can tell. This particular example is the one Witty used in his ref. book.
Now even std Puma Navies are rare as hens teeth. Here is one from my archives.
As far as the progression of Maker marks I have always thought the one with out the diamond was the 1st used.

Paul,

I agree with you in thinking that the cat's head without diamond was the earlier of the two marks. My belief was only based on anecdotal info & in seeing what I believed to be earlier pieces with that mark. I do know it's a point of contention with some collectors though.

Here's my only KM dagger.

A poor shot (due to my crummy skills) of the sailing ship etch. This one came from Witty many moons ago.

Due to my observations in the meantime the put together pieces or total fakes have been much improved. Just a question: do you know ANY feature to distinguish good from bad FOR SURE or is it only because of slobby/good fitting?
I did recognize the TTW example in your post, it is quite distinguishable.
These PUMA daggers do come now at least with three different scabbards. The one with the rope ringholder design which is also pictured in the period PUMA catalogue, the "common" navy scabbard and the one shown by TTW. For me much too many for such a rarely seen dagger...

BTW the leather washer on your last shown dagger - is it original to the piece? PUMAs commonly do come with green felt washers.

Regards,

Concerning the time frame of the maker mark on the Puma Heer dagger the cat head in the small diamond is the earliest and was used on initial production daggers in 1935 then the small stamped mark with no diamond Billy G shows then they went to the large diamond mark. Not sure this follows suit on the Navy though.

Tom:

That makes sense to me.

I have two Luft2s, one with the small diamond and one with the large cat no diamond.

John

Hi Wotan, yes IMHO there are some features to look for...
As far as the buffer pad on the last Puma, agreed likely added at some point.
Now I did received an interesting post from someone concerning this dagger,
"They were made in 1938 as prototypes. Puma had the idea to introduce a new pattern to sell thousands of brand new daggers to the Kriegsmarine. But German thriftiness just changed the reed-bundle pommel to the eagle pommel.
The Puma company told me just a handful were made and send to the involved offices of the Kriegsmarine and Wehrmacht.
Most of them were returned to the company after the introduction of the new pattern had failed."