Do you have a copy of SA Organization and Daggers in Gruppe Nordmark by Dr. phil. Martin Schuster? It states that the regular SA daggers were authorized by order dated December 15, 1933. The honorary (Rohm) daggers were authorized February 3, 1934. Schuster adds a footnote as follows:
Apparently, honorary daggers had already been awarded before that date, but no trace of regulations concerning manufacture or supply of these daggers could be found in the sources. The order introducing honorary daggers in Feb 1934 stated, that these �as the ones awarded heretofore,bear my [i.e. R�hm�s] dedication� (�Auch dieser Dolch tr�gt wie der bisher verliehene meine Widmung.�):OSAF I No. 1444/34, 3 Feb 1934, re Dolche, BA NS23/514. In May 1934 these early honorary daggers (�awarded in December 1933 and January 1934�) were recalled because of their bad quality:OSAF P No.9162/34, 5 May 1934, re Umtausch der Ehrendolche, BA NS23/550.
In addition, my reading of this work suggests to me that the gau marks may have indeed been stamped by the dagger manufacturer as a way to account for the filling of a Gruppe allotment. This especially makes sense if the manufacturer was filling allotments for more than one Gruppe. What better way to account for them than to mark the daggers? It makes less sense to me that the gau marks were stamped after having received the shipment of daggers. What purpose would that serve?
