I will add one comment to this, and I'll keep it brief as I am travelling, and won't be back home (UK) until the end of the week.
The presence of Mr. and Mrs. Mooney, and their account of having possession of the dagger before selling it to Craig, was fully open and honest - in my opinion. I liked them, I felt that they they told the truth, and I can find no fault with their account of the dagger - however, I can question the aspect which was unsaid.
That is to say, Mr. Mooney acknowledged that the dagger came into his possession in 1980 - after the death of his father. Prior to that time, he stated that he recalled seeing the dagger in his father possession perhaps as early as 1963. But this is only a recall - it could be a couple of years either way. More importantly it does not provide a lead to the dagger being "captured" in 1945. He only saw it in about 1963 - and that is well within the period of faking up pieces. Mr. Mooney's father never actually said he obtained it in WWII, because he never spoke about that period of his life to his son.
So we do not know how Mr. Mooney Snr came to possess the piece. Was it a genuine war souvenir, or did he start to collect German daggers at that time? Did he buy it in an auction, or take it as security for a loan or a debt? We don't know. There is no traceable link to show the dagger in its present form existing during the war.
I did not expect Mr. Mooney to be able to add any substantial knowledge to our understanding of these daggers, because his experience of the piece only relates to his modern time ownership of it - and also the fact that he has no understanding of the subject; so it would be unfair to expect him to be able to fill in the "blank spaces".
Mr. Mooney and his wife were seen to be very nice, genuine people, innocently caught up in an issue which has deeper ramifications. And I thought it was rather shameful of Craig to exploit these decent people, in his desperate efforts to perpetuate the myth of the Huhnlein dagger.
I will comment further when I have returned to the UK.
