Luke,

Thanks. If you study daggers in detail as I have done for many years, you see infinite variations, even in the same dagger by the same manufacturer. The raw parts were machine made but the fit and finish was by hand and therein there is scope for variation.

The trademarks were made by applying a thin coat of wax to a heavy paper. The design was photo-etched into the wax. The paper was laid on the blade and the paper peeled away leaving the wax . Acid was applied and ate the steel where it was not covered by wax. After a period of time, the blade was flushed with (probably) water with a base additive to quickly neutralize the acid. The remaning wax was removed, probably with stream. As the worker was applying the the wax template, it sometimes got slightly rotated or off center. Hence you dagger.

Dave