UBB.threads Forums Edged Weapons Miscellaneous Dagger Forum ST147 NPEA

Finally got my 1st NPEA. Every single part is "textbook". Tang marked with reversed P and 4, aluminium crossguards marked with large dot, frog stud correctly marked by Hörster. Ball is magnetic, of course, nice spidering on the shell. Interesting enough, this very dagger is mentioned on p.80 ("Waffenleite...") as the first one (known) to be equipped with aluminium crossguards. Any comments welcome, especially from the author of the book mentioned above.

The only thing you could add was the price, otherwise you have said everything that is important. My book states it is the first one with aluminum crossguards known for STUHM, as it is in that chapter. This is a separation point for the serial number and nickel silver guards, so somewhere in that serial number range, the crossguard material appears to have changed.
From serial number ranges in other schools, it would appear that the first schools purchased 100 student daggers to start with and at some point added more student daggers as graduations took place and some of the daggers left the schools. I don't have any evidence of this but is what has been observed by checking serial numbers and dagger configurations. Some of the schools had more students than others and some had two classes per year, so dagger requirements varied by school.
NPEAs with these tang markings are scarce, but still could be attributed to Horster. This has not been substantiated as of yet. One good indicator on the nickel silver NPEA Crossguards is that the horseshoe, star, S internal marking was only used by Horster as has been determined so far. This is seen on NPEA Daggers and SA Daggers, so Horster pieces are unique with this marking and this lends evidence that Horster was the supplier of NPEA Daggers with the Burgsmuller TM in the early years when the daggers had nickel silver crossguards only.
Ron Weinand
"Waffenleite presenting NPEA Daggers of the Third Reich"

Thanks, Ron. It's always great to hear opinion from someone who is a specialist on the subject. I guess you've heard about that dagger before, to mention it in the Stuhm chapter. The dagger came from Stewart Wilson/ The Old Brigade.

Hear about it? I used to own it years ago.