UBB.threads Forums Edged Weapons SA & NSKK Dagger Forum Anatomy of a Fake SA Hammesfahr

A friend has lent me a fake Gottlieb Hammesfahr. No scabbard.

So here goes. If anyone wants different pics, let me know. My camera has not been cooperating so not all shots are perfect.

Here it is. First impression is that he blade is brighter and more reflective than a real blade. It looks like one of those buffed and Simicromed beauties but the letters are not all blurred.

Another

Tip. Compared to that of a Hammesfahr SS dagger. See what I mean about brighter ?

Trademark

Tang. It appears to be a little larger than on real blades and has no tang marks at all. More signs of work on the tang than I like to see, but it did happen on real blades.

I conclude that the blade was forged, not cast, but from a different alloy than the real SA/SS blades.

Stay tuned. Tommorrow I will use the digital microscope and hope that the camera will behave.

Hi Dave

Thanks for the pictures so we can learn a lot.
Do you have a picture of a real MM to compare?

Regards Jan

Very interesting, Dave!

What about the grip? Is that an original?

It sure looks good on Pic 1.

Best greetings,

Herman

Yes the grip is original but reworked. Crossguards too. In the meantime, I want to work through the blade with you.

Here are a couple more shots of the blade:

Closer. Mirror shiny

Two shots of the fake trademark. Note how fat the lines appear

Different light

Here is the trademark compared to a correct SS G.Hammesfahr trademark. There are NO real SA trademarks available. The fake is on the left

A second view. See how the fake is just perfect but the lines seem a little too fat. Also a bit higher on the blade than the real SS

Remember that USB digital microscope I mentioned a few day ago ?

It really tells the story here. Here is a real close up

And a closer up. Note the (too) perfect detail

Great thread Dave - the fake mark looks a little too precise compared with the original.

Regards

Russ

Some of the detail on the fake

Now, here is what the SS trademark looks like - the real deal

Under high magnification, you can see that acid etching was not perfect. Not nearly as perfect as the fakes

Same applies to the rest of the trademark

Now the fake SA motto - 1

Middle

End

Back to the Califone USB microscope.

Same as the trademark, so I won't put up endless shots. Here is the fake

Same letter from a real SA. A Kober

I think you can see from this:

- The SA G. Hammesfahr is a fake

- At first glance it might pass but the blade is too shiny and the motto/trademark really nice.

- You need more advanced tools to check out your blades.

The scary part is that they are faking SA blades which are 25% of the cost of SS blades.

Stay tuned: The grip and crossguards in a day or so.

Anyone needing more pics speak up.

Dave

Great analyses, Dave!

I look forward to see the rest of the dagger.

Best greetings,

Herman

FANTASTIC tread Dave

Looks like i need to invest in a USB digital microscope

Are they on Ebay??

Dave great detective work & very interesting to know about these fake blades i,m glued to this thread........Regards Scott.

Thats very intresting and scary,, these fakes are so good , i think some credit has to go to mongo whos intricate exhamination of blades was shown on a similar thread,

Now the grip. Genuine with a doubt, but reworked. The crossguards have also been buffed. Their surface looks like the "brushed metal" surface available on newer kitchen faucets.

The contours are blurred

There is either a fault in the wood or a repair

Different view

Great job, Dave! A very educational thread! My respect!

The rune is OK

Reverse same as obverse. There is a barely visible "Om" gau mark

Crossguards are P.A. and are real but buffed with a brush or steel wool.

That it.

The easy tell-tales are:

1. Blade too shiny
2. Maker's mark too perfect, even to the eye

I'll keep it for a day or two in case anyone wants other views.

Dave

Very informative thread Dave well done
Sean

Here is where I got the microscope, but that same product is available from many other suppliers.

http://www.venturaes.com/index...ronics/index.html#DC

The mottos are fresh EDM marks. Someone has made a electrode via CNC and then burned the engraving in the steel. The original method was chemical etching process, they produce a slightly different finish on steel.

Here is the machine. EDM Electrical Discharge Machine

That is a after market retrofit. Do you use it to burn out broken taps etc???. It would be a bear to make a electrode with the correct radius etc.... I have made many graphite electrodes for modern EDM machines Looks like it could have been done this way...

You would be very surprised what that kind of cobbled up machine can do.

This is nicer one

Here we go, now were talking!!! It still would be very hard to make the electrode... I think you would need to have the correct blade profile.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Yes you are correct! This can be done by digitally mapping the part. Not cheap but it can be done. I had to do this once on a trim die with no math data due to a stupid tool shop.

You could use a cordax machine to plot the angels on cad as well. My guess an original blade was scanned to come up with the motto, makers mark and blade angle. Not a cheap process but it can be done. Notice the fake makers mark has thicker lines, Tool cutter path error?

Excellent thread Dave... thanks for posting this one.

I was able to trade with a local animal clinic for an endoscope and a monitor. It does the same job as the microscope. It amazes me how rough the etch surface is on a real SA blade.

Mark

quote:

Originally posted by kingtiger:
I was able to trade with a local animal clinic for an endoscope and a monitor. It does the same job as the microscope. It amazes me how rough the etch surface is on a real SA blade.

Mark

Mark, any pictures available?

What power magnification Mark?

Hi Mike,

It's a Karl Storz 610 C Light Source Xenon unit from Germany. I don't know the actual magnification but you have to almost touch the object to see the image. From a half inch away..blurry..the closer the end of the tube (endo rod) gets to the subject...voila! It came with a Sony flash monitor screen and also pumps air into the subject matter as you would in exploratory surgical work.

Mark

The karl storz 610 c is just the light source- what name/number is on the endoscope(examing tube? Mike

The tube says HOPKINS II and 27005 A and 0 degree on it. Does that help us out?

Mark

Your feature on the fake Gottlieb-Hammesfahr SA dagger was intriguing - but is it correct? (I will resist jokes about anything with the name "Gottlieb" on it being fake!) The real issue here is that despite the quality photographs, and pertinent observations - you did not actually reveal precisely what it was that determined the item to be a fake.

The first thing which strikes me with this artifact is that the blade is very well formed. It looks to me to be drop forged, correctly drawn and finished. This is not some cheap Middle Eastern or Asiatic casting - this piece has been made with some degree of professionalism; and it looks very much like the "real thing".

The second feature which attracts me is the hilt fittings. They appear to be original. The crossguards (P and A marked, but not necessarily "Piel and Adey" - nobody has ever produced the evidence to back that claim up), and the grip, and the grip insignia, and the tang nut - well they all seem to be the real thing. And that is where this case becomes baffling.

In my experience, if any effort was made to correctly drop-forge a blade, then they would not restrict it to a single item - they would produce a minimum of 500 - 1000 units (this is not hand workmanship), So the curiosity here is that if we have this "faker" producing "x-amount" of seemingly perfect fake blades, then where does he obtain his equal supply of original grips, and crossguards, and insignia, etc? You see when you look at this claim in the cold light of day, then some other questions need to be answered - because this claim and this item do not appear to compute.

Here is another point - and it is worthy of greater debate. Hammesfahr SA daggers are a bit thin on the ground. In fact I would go so far as to acknowledge that I have never, ever owned one. SS versions - yes, plenty of them; but not SA versions. And looking at the illustrations, well the trademark on the piece is slightly different to the SS version shown alongside. In fact I would confirm that the trademark on the SA piece is notably different to that of the TM on the SS piece - but does that make it wrong? Can it be any more wrong than the distinction between "smooth-tail" squirrels and "ragged-tail" squirrels on Eickhorn trademark daggers? Just because we have not noted this Hammesfahr trademark variation before does not automatically mean that it is incorrect. The SA piece is unusual - Yes. The SA piece apparently has no other provenance - yes, that too. But WHY is it wrong? WHERE is it wrong? WHERE is the corpus delecti that proves it to be a fake?

You have a position of some prestige, and reverence, in this hobby Mr. Hohaus. So don't you think that if you are going to make some condemnatory statement about an item, then the least you could do is completely acquaint us with the facts that support your allegation. Evidence, Mr. Hohaus.........evidence. You do a good service by presenting these items to the wider collecting community - but don't you think that your "explanation and description" should have a little more substance to it? Just because something is a little bit different, doesn't actually mean that it is wrong. Of course, you may choose to disagree with me.

FJS

How about forge marks on the tang ? were they used on real blades ? and is there any on the fake ? just a thought but you got me curious with this now

Tang markings do not always appear on original blades, so the absence of any marking should not be automatically presumed to be indicative of a fake blade.
FJS

Quote
"In my experience, if any effort was made to correctly drop-forge a blade, then they would not restrict it to a single item - they would produce a minimum of 500 - 1000 units (this is not hand workmanship)"

Mornin Frederick:
Remember that conversation you and I had with Rex Reddick at the MAX two years ago? I believe blade* manufacturing was one item we discussed and he confirmed that he had to purchase them in quantities of 500 in order for it to work financially.
Jim
* For those here who don't know who Rex Reddick is he's a large purveyor of reproduction 3rd Reich items and he supplied "replacement" blades for many years.

And many are out there...posing as...!!
Seiler (Yank in UK)

Fred,

Read through the first page again and look at the pictures. That is my evidence. I said the blade was forged, i.e made in a forge.

If you could, list the points you disagree with and I will try to answer them.

Dave

Radar & Damast.
My old Co.made EDM electrodes in very fine
moly wire and tungsten right here in US,(PA)
I would say most EDM Distributors in US bought from them and "Shed loads" went to OEM,s all over the EU.Amazing the work they did with them.
Seiler (yank in UK)

Dave,

In response to your reply I have read through your first page - and indeed the entire thread, several times - and nowhere do you reveal a precise reason for believing that this SA Dagger is a fake. It might not be a bad idea if you re-read this same information yourself. It will assist the situation if you and I are seen to be assessing the same information. So I recommend that you firmly acquaint yourself with what is published in your name. You have made a statement - I am asking you to back it up.

Let’s be clear about this - you annotate your thread with the caption: “Anatomy of a Fake SA Hammesfahr”. Well there is no doubt about that description - we have here a basic SA dagger - sans scabbard - which you declare to be a fake; and you are going to take it apart and show us why it is wrong. No problem with that at all - except that you don’t show us what exactly is wrong with this item. This seems to me to be a failing in your analysis.

Starting at the beginning: You identify the hilt fittings correctly as being original - although they do appear to have been subjected to polishing, buffing, etc. etc. The presence of the “Om” stamp on the lower guard suggests that this portion of the item, at least, had spent some time as part of a Service Dagger. The stamped mark, by the way is an SA Group marking, not a “gau” marking as you incorrectly stated.

It now appears that what we have is not so much a “.........Fake SA Hammesfahr”, but an original hilt to which has been added a fake SA blade? Are you absolutely sure that the blade is fake?

I agree that the blade appears to have been worked upon - the tip seems to have been re-shaped, but cannot all this be the result of over-enthusiastic restoration? (After all, the hilt fittings have been subjected to some workmanship.) You state that the tang appears to be “larger” - larger than what, and by how much? If all this boils down to that this item has a marginally different tang, a “shiny” blade, and a slightly different trademark, is all that sufficient to declare this item to be faked - regardless of the fact that it is housed in an original hilt? Such a conclusion based upon such “facts” appears top be lacking measurable proof - empirical or otherwise.

The trademark, I agree, is intriguing. It has certainly been created from a different master pattern, and it has some slight differences to the “real” version that you show alongside. Within this “fake” trademark there are minute differences in the shape of some of the letters in the name and address - but I suspect that this is just some random difference created by the original lettering artist. If you look closely at your “original” trademark (and I do consider that your example is original) you will also find some small differences within the same letters - take a look at the letter “E” for example. In some of them the central crossbar of the “E” is much higher in position, whereas elsewhere it is more or less central.

On the "fake" trademark the most immediately recognisable and distinguishing feature concerns the “pyramid” emblem in the centre. Two brief points to present to you;
1) The “cross” emblem in the central face is more solid and thicker.
2) The position of the baseline of the pyramid shows that the total image is lower down. It aligns with the space between the text letters and the “dots”; whereas on your SS trademark it is roughly aligned with the start and finish of the text in the upper arc.

These differences are not enough, in my view, to declare the piece wrong. The apparent thickness of the lines in the trademark etch could be explained by the amount of time the piece spent in the etching bath.

Could it be, Dave, that what you have encountered here is in fact a previously unrecorded example of a Gottlieb Hammesfahr SA dagger; and by odd coincidence it just happens to have a trademark variation which similarly has not been noted before? There doesn’t appear to be anything else showing obvious red flags.

Please review your “Anatomy of a Fake SA Hammesfahr”. Is it possible that you have innocently made a mistake here - or is it myself who has over-looked something?

FJS

IMO the etching on the blade is too clean for an acid etching process. Every time I make extremely enlargings of my dagger pictures I see things get rough. The limits of this etching process I guess. This SA etch is so crisp and perfect and remembers me more on the high tec applied logo's I see on common knives that leaving the Solinger manufacturer firms today. Maybe I'm not the greatest blade expert but on my work I spend my time to take a good look at the new Solinger maker marks on the knives that arrive in our shop. Every modern common household knives have these logo's in an extremely crisp way, just like that doubtfull blade on top of this thread.

Regards, Theo

Concerning of accuracy: In the world of German combat awards this level is already old news. They make the badges with correct front an correct reverse setup according the specific manufacturer. We can keep ourselves busy with detecting every tiny die flaw for detecting the good ones between the amazing perfect copies. Big red flags have changed in small red spots only visible for a very trained eye

Regards, Theo

This all seems to boil down to the conclusion that if you want a REALLY fine example of a rare SA blade then go for the 'fake' every time!

Hi Terry,

It has nothing to do with the beautiful apperance of a nice SA or SS blade seeing only with the help of your own two eyes. The ultra rare early SA blade in stunning condition will still have a more crude edge if you blow the letterings this huge like posted by Dave. Only the high quality modern fake -with todays technology's can create such extremely crisp edges. I wouldn't suprise if this blade came out of today's Germany, forged like they did it in the past and maker marked it and applied a logo with the same technique they using for marking common kitchen knives. I'm sure that if I go downstairs to my kitchen, take one of my Herder made potato peeling knives and study that mill-logo with a magnifier, it will be much more crisp then on my old SA daggers.

Regards, Theo

Since I own this blade in question, I can tell you that I got it from Germany-Mike

Hi Fred!
When I was 10 years of age or so, I felt and still feel your book was one of the most useful references ever!
Perhaps Dave did not spell out in explicit detail how to interpret his results but there is definitely very useful information in this thread.
Since I am educated as a physician and have a huge background in the physical sciences I can say with confidence Dave conducted a very thorough dissection of the piece in question, it was compared to an original example as a control. I wish you would do the same of your analysis of items you question.
Best Wishes,
Bob

Hello Bob,

I have just found your reply (I only log on here every few weeks, or so); and so I agree that my comment would perhaps be better served if I gave a first-hand disection and analysis of the item in question.

Well, it does appear that your wish is going to be met. Mike McAlvanah has offered to pass the dagger over to me for extended consideration - when I meet him at the MAX in about a month's time.

So I will be pleased to offer to yourself, and the rest of the world, a more detailed analysis of the piece - and hopefully meeting the justifiably exacting standards that you apply to everything else.

It will be my pleasure to furnish my comments to the higher standards that my peer group share.

FJS

We will look forward to your considered opinion on the dagger Fred long may you serve this hobby you were a look up to person for me in my early days in the 70s so glad you are still there telling it like it is

Fred,

I'm glad you will have a chance to see that one. Just looking at it alone will not tell the story.

You need to compare it against the real thing so will will need to have one or two good good SA daggers and a real Hammesfahr political trademark.

Most importantly, you will need some means of magnifying the motto and trademark etches side by side as I did.

Dave

Dave,

It will be my intention to locate other Hammesfahr pieces for objective comparison. You may be assured that whatever observations I note, I will be dilligent and open in revealing what I find, and what my conclusion might be.

FJS

I agree "if any effort was made to correctly drop-forge a blade, then they would not restrict it to a single item - they would produce a minimum of 500 - 1000 units". But where are these other units when veteran collectors across the globe have never seen (a real) one? Supplemented with the exemplary information Dave has provided it is obvious to me that this is someone's metallurgy and authentication project designed to fool collectors. IMHO

That's amazing, nice photos. This is the stuff I look at with an eye loop before I buy. Great job Dave!

hi, could you help me? what do you think about this blade, please?

show the other side

Agree - in a lot larger photo

thanks, I ask the seller to send me better pictures

for now I only have these pictures he sent me quickly







there are two daggers for sale but I already see many inconsistencies

Minor problem, Gottlieb did not make SA daggers-MJM

it will just remove the black paint on the wooden handle

what do you think about this detail?



i don't like!

surprising!; Seeing the number of questions and photos I asked the salesman he don't replied me .....

This is just great for the collector. So besides the etching it looks that most fakes have a mirror finish with no cross graining in the blades ? Am I correct ? And do you or anyone else know the names of the most faked SA and NSKK daggers ? Again , This is just great and Thanks for the work you put into this ! Rattler

Just noticing also that the repro blade shows little or no cross graining, unlike the original.

From what I have seen, the most faked SA/NSKK (and SS) trademarks are those of Eickhorn, both the early ones and the RZM marks. After that, perhaps EP&S, then the RZM marks other than Eickhorn.

This forum name "anonymous" in this instance and others relating to mostly SA daggers, Allach or SS Honor Rings, is often, me. I was just reading through this thread, which I thought was great, Dave, and read my own reply and thought "Man, this is right up my alley". I have the endoscope and monitor and now I want to hook it up and take some macro shots.

Kingtiger

(Mark)

I will be taking some very soon and post them.

Mark

Hello ,

thanks for sharing , very usefull pics.

S+

Excellent and absolutely didactic pics.

Thanks Dave!

The guy faking these seems to have shifted to more profitable SS fakes.

Check this out:

http://phpstack-500133-1583587.cloudwaysapps.com/~germand2/ubbthreads.php/topics/339016/ss-dagger-gotlieb-hammesfahr-2.html#Post339016

Also if anyone has a reasonable fake SS / SA / NSKK, I'd like to buy or borrow it so I can do another analysis.

Your name will be kept out of it if you like

Dave