Ron,

You make a good point about the unmarked Eickhorn Luftwaffe daggers. I particularly like the fact that Len's bayonet blade has the generic "SOLINGEN" marking in addition to the Curna stamp. The more I think about it, the more I think you are right that Curna probably hilted this blade and then stamped their name on it. My guess would be that Eickhorn etched the blade and sold it to Curna as parts who then finished the bayonet and sold it under thier own name. Why go to the trouble to forge and etch this blade if they could walk down the street to Eickhorn and buy them wholesale as parts.

I think we might be talking at cross purposes sometimes when we try to divide these folks up into manufacturers or dealers or whatever. They were all merchants who were trying to make a Reichsmark by selling Blanke Waffen. To them, parts is parts. No doubt Curna manufactured some items themselves and bought parts from others, just like most other Solingen "makers" did.

I really think that Len's bayonet is a perfectly good piece as all the red flags can be explained by what we know of the way Solingen merchants conducted business. I would buy it and be perfectly happy with it.

George

"You can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself." Ricky Nelson