UBB.threads Forums Edged Weapons Army, Navy, and Luftwaffe Forum Black grip army dagger

I have a few questions about the black grip army dagger.
First, does anyone have pictures of a black grip army dagger in wear.
Second, is there any kind of evidence that army officers have worn black gripped daggers.
Third, did anyone ever see a white painted grip on a Eickhorn army dagger.


Regards
Danny

I used to have Klaas army with black grip which was painted white. I have removed white paint and had a railway dagger ;-)

No opinions at all? How about Johnz who is an Eickhorn specialist.

I have never seen a black gripped Heer.

But, I have seen black gripped Luft2s (Klaas only, the so-called funeral dagger) and an Eickhorn black gripped Kriegsmarine dagger.

I have no idea what, if anything, the black grips were for.

John

Basically what you have is a Army dagger with a black grip....
I can tell you that Eickhorn never officially made one..
These questions have been asked for years...

The black gripped Army has been discussed for years.
Johnson put a strong case forward in one of his references.
The Black gripped Navy- that is a conundrum as I have hear of these turning up from time to time in hotels buys etc. Would love to hear the story behind them....

Of course a black navy handle could be explained away by a upgrade from a earlier model.. But when you have all parts from the post 1937 period with a black handle that is a little harder to explain..

John hasn't seen one, so where does that leave the non-specialists? Not mine, here is a Klaas Luftwaffe dagger that most fortunately escaped the transition to a black handled "Funeral Dagger".

If I got it right, Tom Johnson's proof is what is supposed to have been the property of a Bahnschutz official that consisted of an unidentified bayonet, a black gripped Army dagger by Coppel, and a Bahnschutz (2nd Model) dagger by Weyersberg. With Tom Wittmann in his own catalogs saying the following: "The first dagger allegedly worn by this organization was an Army configuration, equipped with black grip. Whether it was actually a Railway dagger is still speculation. Original examples were usually marked with the Robt. Klaas "Kissing Cranes" logo." Not exactly the wording of a really strong endorsement IMO, no black gripped (white only) Army daggers are mentioned in a mid-1936 article in "Die Klinge". With the Bahnschutz daggers (so-called 2nd Models) seen in period documentation several years later circa 1938, the topic of the black handled Army type of daggers seems to periodically get re-energized. Best Regards, Fred