In German hallmarking, the Crescent, or Sickled, Moon emblem indicated that the product was silver. I believe that the emblem of a "Sun" was used if the base metal was gold.
To answer your question, Jason, you know from our private e-mails that I acknowledge that an "NSKK Honour Dagger with chains" must exist, because of the photographic evidence of them in wear (two examples, for certain). Yet I am far from convinced that these "Huhnlein" pieces are authentic. The phoney hallmark discredits them immediately.
The grossly poor central mount is also another feature of doubt, and they all seem to have this amateur feature. The upper and lower mounts are well made, so why not the centre mount? The SA Honour Dagger, upgraded to a chained version, has a very nice scalloped central mount to accommodate it's new chains, so why not this NSKK version?
It is my theory that all these "Huhnlein Honour Daggers" started out life as "regular" SA Honour Daggers. The scam has been to convert them by adding the chains and central mount together with the Huhnlein "signature" on the blade. Potentially this would double the value of the dagger.
All the examples I have seen, whether being the wide cartouch with Gahr marking or the "regular" spring clip, seem to have fake chains with no NSKK markings (the chain was a protected design for the organisation - hence the "musterschutz" stamping that normally appears on the reverse of the chains).
I am sure that there must be an authentic NSKK Honour Dagger with chains out there, somewhere, but it is most certainly not one of these specimens with the fake hallmarkings and/or the inappropriately crude central mount. As for the Huhnlein signature - what is its purpose? It denotes nothing by itself.
You may not like my theory, Jason, but I think that you will have to concede that with the instance of the fake hallmark, then I certainly have a valid point - and my other observations are not far off the mark, either.
FJS
