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#309835 07/22/2015 08:55 AM
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Gentlemen,
There has been a question on my mind since I bought an almost mint Red Cross leaders dagger about eight years ago. I'll post pictures later when I get time. I've known since I first started investigating German daggers that the Social Welfare model had round holes as opposed to rectangular, on the suspension bands, and that this was the only distinguishing feature between the two. I have accepted this theory for years, but wanted to ask what period sources are there that state this fact. Is there any evidence if and why this small difference was used. It just seems incomprehensible to me that a designer or manufacturer would go to the trouble of having these differently shaped holes, which wouldn't be visable anyway when the hangers were attached.
Many thanks for any and all opinions on this topic.
Regards
Arminius

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I share the same view with regard to the Government Official and Diplomatic daggers. Which way the crossguard eagle faces seems like a minute difference.

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Only "we" care. I helps price point at sale time:0 over time and this is my observation only I have seen fewer Social Welfare daggers with the round holes vs the RedX type. Bret Van Sant

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I believe the only distinguishing feature between the two services to be the hanging straps. Shape of Scabbard suspension holes merely indicating two manufacturers, round holes being from a less prolific manufacturing source, possibly Luneschloss and Klaas as per the DRK Hewer


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You guys are not the only ones, I too have wondered about this fact. It seems we as collectors ponder things that are so minescule.

I would agree with Paul that there seems to be little to no difference between the round vs. rectangular holes & that they are explained by a manufacturer's variant. The real difference lies in the type of hangers that adorn the dagger. Social Welfare hangers are certainly more scarce than Red Cross hangers.


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This is my opinion also, that the hangers are the distinguishing feature and the different shape of holes is down to different manufacturers. It would be fun to know who those manufacturers were.

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After buying several hundred of these two daggers directly from veterans over the years: The ones with round holes always had Social Welfare hangers and the ones with rectangular holes had Red Cross hangers with out exception. Everyone else that I have talked with about this and bought directly from veterans had the same experience. When this repeats so often, I'd say there must have been a reason.


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Thank you Ron, that level of experience is invaluable isn't it. Perhaps Red Cross leaders daggers were commissioned first, and initial manufacture used rectangular holes. Later it was decided to issue more to Social Welfare and either (a) a different manufacturer was commissioned to do the work, or (b), it was felt after experience that round holes were an improvement on the former pattern.

Having worked in an industry that manufactures military insignia, it is amazing how quickly, 5 or 6 years, the workers forget completely about the details of why they made items in a certain way. After the work is done the people involved in the production move on to the next job. After records are destroyed that's it. Up to future collectors to pontificate!

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Originally Posted By: Ronald Weinand
After buying several hundred of these two daggers directly from veterans over the years: The ones with round holes always had Social Welfare hangers and the ones with rectangular holes had Red Cross hangers with out exception. Everyone else that I have talked with about this and bought directly from veterans had the same experience. When this repeats so often, I'd say there must have been a reason.


I will say that Ron's experience is the same as mine. I know that I bought a Social Welfare dagger from a vet a few years ago that has round holes and the correct social welfare hangers. The other interesting thing is that the eagle in the crossguard was very carefully blackened. I have never seen that before.


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Originally Posted By: Ronald Weinand
After buying several hundred of these two daggers directly from veterans over the years: The ones with round holes always had Social Welfare hangers and the ones with rectangular holes had Red Cross hangers with out exception. Everyone else that I have talked with about this and bought directly from veterans had the same experience. When this repeats so often, I'd say there must have been a reason.


I can only emphasize what Ron has written. and even more, direct sources, daggers comming directly from the former wearer or from the family of the former wearer have the same features.
"Wearing..." photographs of such daggers are rare, such in which you can distinguish hanger/hole nearly impossible to find. BUT I do own some and these also show these certain features.

@ DONS: There exists even a PERIOD PRINTED REGULATION which states that the direction of the head (left/Gov, right/Diplo) is directly in connex with the certain branch!

Regards,


wotan, gd.c-b#105

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@ DONS: There exists even a PERIOD PRINTED REGULATION which states that the direction of the head (left/Gov, right/Diplo) is directly in connex with the certain branch!

Regards,
[/quote]
Wotan: The existence of such a regulation is extremely interesting. It begs a question based on the evidence of surviving daggers - why did Alcoso comply with this regulation, but apparently not Eickhorn?

Regards

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Hello Barry Brown, yes, this is an interesting question. Much more confused by the obviously (due to official regulation) erroneously interchanged printing templates in the EICKHORN list. And the existance of ONLY EICKHORN RMBOs and the existance of yellow gripped (up to now I have not seen any DOUPTLESS period yellow gripped EICKHORN) Govs by ALCOSO.
We do know few about the specialities of dagger manufacturing. Some period letters of complaint shed a little light on the matter and might be the solution for the question and why eg.(other!) daggers had been produced without mm. Imho it has to do with just the internal partition of the production market. Most likely -in this case- ALCOSO and EICKHORN did have an agreement (like: you do produce monopoly the Diplomat´s sidearms, I do produce monopoly RMBO daggers) but details are pure speculations - until written documents do surface.
We know that at least there is a corespondance concerning SSdegens between Müller and HH. Müller did complain that he was not allowed to produce such degens, which did lead to the result (at least for some period) to produce such degens without mm.
It is a pity that most documents are gone to time (or do rest unknown- I think of the treasure of the EICKHORN files...) but our hobby remains interesting, with interesting details.
Regards,




wotan, gd.c-b#105

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Yes indeed: If only more primary source documentation was available to us, like the Eickhorn period factory files. I believe that the Eickhorn Musterbuch is in private hands, perhaps with the possibility of commercial publication in the future. Meanwhile, there's always hope in this fascinating hobby we all share.

Regards


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