Hello, I've recently inherited some knives that I know nothing about besides surfing the net enough to figure out they are "RAD"s. They come from the inlaws relatives, and to us due to a tragedy. We understand the grandfather was in WW2 very late, and apparently picked up a few souvenirs. Upon returning to the States, this vet sold some to buy furniture....then later regretted it and re-built his "collection" of 4 later in life. I don't know if these are originals or purchased later - real or fake. I have no desire to sell them, but they were in a box in the attic, so I'd like to know if they are real and should be treated better...or fakes. Thanks in advance!

Welcome, Cevin,

Those two look pretty good, as does the Luftwaffe with the fancy blade, but my specialty is SS/SA, so others will chime in.

Dave
Admin

Thanks, I have one of those too...let me take/ post the pictures

Both look good to me. I can’t see quite so good but the RAD leader dagger appears to have a good amount of plating left on the hilt, which is a relative rarity.

Hello, what I can see from the pics both hewers are orignal ones. The leader hewer (ALCOSO) seems to be the rarer full-aluminum-hilt (no plating) variant.
Regards,

Interesting Wotan, I don’t think I’ve encountered such an item.

Thanks for everyone's feedback. How do I preserve these? They are very dirty.

Hello Billy , yes, they are rare but I have seen some of them.


Most dirt is desirable patination! Not on the leader´s hilt because aluminum cannot patinate. Let them alone! Only very few drops of a good weapon oil on the blade which is also wiped away with a clean cloth does all.
If you have access to "Renaissance Wax" (a special professional preservation product) you can use it instead of the weapon oil.
But be always careful not to damage the patination.
Some parts (eg the pebbled middle field of the scabbard) are artificially (factory) patinated which is very desirable. As said, only some preservation for the blade and let all other parts as they are.
This is the look of the hewers after 70+ years so they easily will survive the next 70+ years with not more harm if let alone.
Regards,

Thank you! I will use a bit of gun oil. I just recently inherited them and pullling them out of the scabbard was a bit unnerving as they were very tightly in there and I felt they might scratch. The oil should help that.