Concerning rareness: Because of understandable
reasons I do research on these FHh daggers for a long time.
My facts are: The highest by me known serialnumber of a dagger is 51 which corresponds with the said number of around 50 daggers manufactured.
Due to several features you can distinguish at least MOST FHH daggers and if you do research you can see the one or the other steadily changing owners. E.g. the "McCarthy" dagger with itīs originally not belonging together hangers went by several times.
I was aware of 12 sure originals (duty daggers) until last year. Including two which for sure never have seen collectorīs market. Last year autumn a for me new one did appear. Now this dagger here is also a new one which makes (for me) a total of 14 known originals. If you add letīs say 3 or 4 we do not know..... makes around 18 existing ones around the world.
Not a very high number I would think
.
And only about 40-50% of the known daggers have hangers with them.
As said before, during the last years several from the suddenly available ones went to russia, imo gone/lost forever or at least for a long time for the western market.
Concerning the prices: The one from autumn last year (one of those with cracked bakelit grips) was offered - with hangers - for 60000(!) EUROS and was sold (I was personal wittness) for 54000 EUROS (!!!!!).
Craig did offer a said "very good" fake ("not so good" if you have the real thing and you know what to look for
) for 7000 USD od it was sold within a short time.
Concerning originallity: Mr. Stephens is a true oldtimer on these exclusive daggers and he KNOWS what he writes about these daggers. BUT the fakers try hard to get all these known features to fake such a X0.000 $$$$ gem. And therefore I have seen some features on sure fakes very very improved.
The best for detecting a fake is when you have hold an original one in your own hands. You will never forget it and the whole, detailed impression imo cannot be faked.
Concerning variants: There are the "common" ones with wooden or bakelit grip. It is unknown why these material was changed because I know a one digit dagger with wooden grip, a dagger in the 1X range with bakelit grip and later ones (higher numbers) again with wooden grips.
There are awardes ones (Göring and an italian general) with white grips. There is an awarded, totally handmade dagger with wooden grip for LUTZE (this was NO duty dagger but an awarded dagger!). Earlier my thoughts were that all the awarded daggers (beside the Lutze one) had white grips. But then I came over perid photographs where italian officers (beside the general with the white gripped dagger) did wear also FHH daggers but with brown grip. So my personal -in no way prooved - theory is that these awarded daggers had the bakelit grips and those worn by the leaders of the FHH and the leaders of the OSAF had wooden grips. But as said, no proof.
Concerning substandard: For most collectors who donīt have one (and wish to own one) it is "substandard", for most who own one it is a superior gem. From this point of view it is more "substandard" than gem
Fact is that it is made of leightweight metal which is not easy to handle and casting is difficult especially to gain fine details (think of the custom daggers). But this modern leightweight metal was the nonplusultra at these times, a modern metal and leightweight which made it possible to create such a large (long) dagger which still could be worn.
And finally: itīs a CASBERG design.
Regards,
