Fred, I don't want to take away from the topic at hand regarding the Gau marked pieces, but the type III or X guards are not really that rare. For years going back collectors have heaped these in to the Type II dagger category. I've seen many daggers being listed as Type II when in fact they are not.
With the early Type I scabbard, we see a time line that these can be matched with maker marked blades and showing early constructed heavy plated chains.
But once again, I would hate to see the topic confused by incerting later plated crossguards on war time M36 daggers and inferring that nickel Gau crossgurds were switched to make these pieces more pretty to the collecting community. That simply isn't true and as I stated one of these early M36 chains was pulled from the walls of a building uncovered in Germany. If the switching of ugly plated crossgurds have reached the wall of an unearthed building in Germay, the conspiricy must be global.
