Has anyone looked at the below linked out of curiosity and received the additional photos?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6603...TRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1
The grip insignia looks like the one pictured on page 485 of Wittmann's latest on SS edged weapons...
Grip insignia from the side
Dave,
Thanks for posting this one as it will fool a lot of people. These short KS98 bayonets came out of Germany some years ago and are very good fakes. They are complete reassemblies based on original bayonets that have blades etched postwar in Germany. The etching and the eagle are postwar. I saw one in a militaria shop in N�rnberg perhaps 15-20 years ago with this same distinctive etching and they seem to come from this area. The fellow also had high quality fakes of the WSP dagger (with etched police eagle on the blade) as well as Luft General and Diplomat swords.
George
Fake-There are only two known originals with this etch pattern. They have the long blade and are in police mounts and have other differences. There are several variations of this fake--with ornamental leaves-without-different units-clamshells and without clamshell-KS mounts and police mounts-with gold colored police grip eagles-different makers-etc. Extreme caution advised.
Although I wanted this one to be real, I had a bad feeling about it from the start. Here's a pic of the polizei adler from the blade etch.
A better view of the grip emblem.
The grip emblem is nothing more than a Police Officer degen eagle. These are found quite often on fake or altered police bayonets because there are quite a few unissued ones still around. It is very difficult to obtain the original early or mid period aluminum pierced ones that are correct for the police bayonet.
Found this in some of my old fake files. Same etch, sort of.
Flip side, this one was on a clamshell
