DDR Medical dagger

[TFA]

Is it original? Thanks for your comments on this postings!!!
foto http://www.worlddaggers.com/data/ins...lter=Post+WWII

[Kartofelpreußer]

The link you provided would not open for me, but I assume you are referring to the supposed DDR medical daggers with the wavy blades.

I can't find the specific thread offhand, but I know these have been discussed on this forum, and my understanding is that the concensus opinion is that they are fake.

[Rev462]

TFA:

The link also would not open for me.

According to Kurt Glemser, author of several volumes about non-Nazi daggers ("A Guide to Military Dress Daggers" ) the DDR "Medical Dagger" did exist as a prototype only. ( Discussed in Vol. 1).

How many prototypes would have been made? I would presume just a handful - maybe 5 or 10 at the most?

In the period just immediately following unification, the dagger manufacturer continued to assemble daggers from leftover stock and even created a few spurious presentation daggers - with dedications engraved on the blade or scabbard panels. It is probably reasonable to assume that they made a few more doctor's daggers as well.

So I guess what it boils down to is this: there is a small number of original prototypes and probably a larger number assembled post-unification . As I have never examined one personally, I do not know if it is even possible to distinguish an original prototype from a post-unification piece.

[Kartofelpreußer]

Thanks for the info Rev.

It was my impression from reading the other posts that some felt that at least some, if not all, of the Medical daggers might have been either standard officer's daggers with the blades ground down to falsely inflate the value or post-unification blades made to order:

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=185271

Perhaps there were original prototypes that were subsequently faked. Or maybe, as you say, there WERE some extra blades afeter unification. I certainly don't know either way, but I would be suspicious of any such dagger.

[Rev462]

Kartofel:

I would imagine that the original prototypes quickly landed in the collections of big shot European collectors.

The post-unification pieces may have been made from extra prototype blades, or perhaps they fabricated them from standard blades, or even made them up from scratch.

In any case, I think it's safe to assume that going by numbers alone, any such piece is likely to be a fake (i.e., there are more fakes than originals). In the absence of any kind documentation of provenance, I would be highly skeptical of any medical dagger.