UBB.threads Forums Edged Weapons Army, Navy, and Luftwaffe Forum l Navy dagger

Greetings,

Although I'm new to GDC, I have spent many hours reading hundreds of past and current posting. I collected Third Reich items in the late 70's into the mid 80's, but dropped out of it while working my way through school. Over the past 30 plus years my collection has only seen the light of day on a few occasions. At this time, I am working through everything in my collection to weed out the fakes and develop a better understanding of what I have and hope to get some input from the members of GDC. I'll be posting pictures of various pieces that I have questions about and hopefully add to the knowledge base on this site so that others can benefit from it as I have.

The target for the day is a 2nd model navy dagger. I bought this piece in 1979 along with a near equally new condition Red Cross subordinates hewer by PDL. Just for the record, both came from a WWII vet, militaria collector, dealer and long time friend of mine who picked them up from the vet who originally liberated both daggers, story be told for what its worth. The issue is that it doesn't have a mark on it, inside or out. I have compared it to the various maker types on the web site https://www.kriegsmarinedolch.de/. and by my eye, it matches what WKC was producing. The pommel and eagle are an exact match to the WKC type. The celluloid(?) over wood grip looks right and the size of the wire and tightness of the twist also seem to be a match. The cross guard detailing, anchor pattern and the retainer mechanism all seem to match the WKC daggers. The fit of the grip into the cross guard and pommel is quite precise. I've noticed that different makers styled the oak leaf design on the hanger loop banding in their own way. This one looks like the WKC pieces shown by the pattern of the leaves and placement of the acorn left of center on the upper band. The interior blade slides are wood. The blade is almost perfect except for a few light pits near the tip. The finish is completely intact and the only ferrous metal is the actual blade. I always thought the scabbard, cross guard and pommel were brass, but I've since seen them described as a brass or gilt finished alloy. I'd like to know more about that as well. The fit and finish are as good as any Solingen made piece I've seen and the detailing of the cast elements look better to me than most of what I saw on the Kriegsmarinedolch website. Does anybody out there has experience with unmarked Kriegsmarine daggers? I've seen various unmarked daggers before some looked right, others were obviously pieced together by someone in a hurry or lacking the skill to do it right. Some of the parts on these looked good, but others were obviously bad reproduction parts. However, this dagger is a very tight piece of work.

More pictures

And two more pictures

Hi Ranger,
I can?t see nothing wrong on the dagger. In my opinion is it a typical unmarked WKC one.
Best,
Oleg.

Thanks Oleg, I take it that unmarked WKC navy daggers aren't unheard of. I wonder if they made unmarked pieces throughout production or just for a time?

Hello, as Oleg67 has already written, I too cannot see anything wrong with this dagger. I have seen several WKC type daggers with plain blade and without a mm and do own one myself (with hammered scabbard). They are not easy to find but come by from time to time.
I personally do not think that it is matter of time when these have been produced but more a matter of circumstances (perhaps a supply of a special distributor or navy unit as cheap model therefore omit the mm???). Until any written pages turn up we will not know.
Regards,