George, I understand where you are coming from, but I think that it might help first if we actually had a legitimate period German name for the sword. As you already know during Imperial times the government property dress swords for senior ranking infantry Unteroffizier mit Portepee were called �Infanterie-Offizierdegen�. And Third Reich era government issue Luftwaffe �Fleigeroffizierdolch� carried by later era Unteroffizier mit Portepee retained the same name and German Army ranking NCO�s carried their unornamented government issue sabers. They did not change sword or dagger names to conform to end users being enlisted men.
There is period physical evidence that the SS Degens with runes were called �Ehrendegens des Reichsf�hrers SS�. Using or creating German sounding names like: �SS-Mannschaftendegen�, �SS-Unteroffizierdegen�, or �SS-Bewerberdegen� can be extremely misleading if they were not used during the time of the Third Reich and/or were called something else.
My point being that especially with some of the better made fakes sometimes it is it is the small details or some other seemingly non-related factor which gives them away as fakes. I am not prejudging Manfred�s sword - only pointing out that some otherwise very good fakes have been discovered by inscriptions with poor German grammar or something else that does not make sense. And there are some questions about why the sword is in the configuration that it is in - especially since the issue of what it really is has a bearing on that configuration.
Photographs: I have an excellent photograph of an SS soldier in training with a Czech VZ24 rifle and bayonet. Does that mean that Czech weapons were for a time standard issue for some SS soldiers? In this case yes, because there are a number of other photographs of Czech weapons being used in combat operations in various theaters. I have another photograph of an SS soldier in Russia using a Russian Tokarev rifle. Does that mean that they were standard SS issue at one time? No, the Tokarev�s were used temporarily as field expedients and disposed of when they quit working or could no longer get ammunition.
My point here being that without some kind of corroboration a few photographs (and most especially blurred/fuzzy ones) don�t prove that an item was standard issue for a specific class of individuals. Only that on the day that the picture was taken that a specific item may have been used.
