The Kriegsmarine Honour Dagger with diamonds

[limbach]

... there’s one hint to a dagger issued by Doenitz probably to Brandi which was made by Piet Puype in 1974.

This dagger was auctioned by Wallis&Wallis in 1966, auction #133, lot 798. Puype speculated that this item could had been issued to Brandi.
This particular dagger was also featured by Angolia in his 1970 book Honor Daggers Of The German Navy on page 254. Off course there’s no proof about being original nor to whom it was awarded.

Interestingly Puype stated that all daggers were forged in the Small Rose pattern.

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Brandi and Lüth definitely got the dagger of honor. Brandi's son once confirmed to me the existence of the dagger and that it should be in a US-American collection (Robert (Bob)Waitts, meanwhile deceased).
Interesting would be the question whether Günther Prien, for example, still received the dagger?

[Norm F]

... just an additional opinion from 1965.

Mr. Atwood, beside his nearly James Bond life, was a knowledgeable collector and reproducer. However it’s probably interesting what he had to say nearly 35yrs back.

Best;
collecting

Hi collecting,

It is indeed interesting, although it's hard to separate out truth from fiction with a character like that! From past discussions:

Major Atwood was one of the pioneers of Third Reich dagger collecting. He used to go around Germany, Solingen in particular , buying up daggers and especially surplus unused stocks of dagger parts then still held in the factories. From these parts he made many daggers. Some were just conventional "parts daggers" but others were made up with the addition of new fake bits.

Jim Atwood was a true pioneer in the hobby of TR Dagger collecting. NO true reference book was available when he wrote his in 1962 [sic, 1965]. It was the ONLY reference where information concerning the origin of the daggers and the organizations was frist put together and some of the different daggers were shown and identified for the frist time.
Atwood also bought parts and HAD SOME PARTS MADE to have stock forsale at gunshows in the US. NO ONE knew what originals were supposed to look like and, since he was the authority, no one questioned his sales. He was the expert and so everything he brought into the US sold almost immediately. He did very well with book sales and selling daggers he paid next to nothing for and got thousands of leads on original, veteran acquired daggers in the US-letters and offers poured into him by the thousands with his articles in Argosy Man's Magazine. He bought things like Goring's Wedding Sword as a direct result of his book and articles from veterans.

When I was a 17 yr old novice collector, Jim was kind enough to see me when I visited him in Berlin when I went to see Germany, August 1961. The East Germans had just divided Berlin and Jim was frantically running around his Army office that had an adjoining door that was marked "Secret" (or "Top Secret", I don't remember) From then on, I kept contact with him for several years and he kept sending me stuff. Much of it was real although much was fake as I later learned. He had quite a number of Kriegsmarine items at the time and I remember him offering to sell me a Naval diamond (?) studded dagger which I couldn't afford at $600. Those were quite the days.

It is perhaps significant that despite his propensity to profit on parts daggers and reproductions, he stuck with the Klietmann account of there being only six KM honour daggers back then.

It's odd that in his description of the "Albrecht" dagger from his collection he describes the Reader dedication being on the reverse and the Eickhorn logo on the obverse -- opposite to what is seen in the Topp and Witzell daggers.

Best regards,
---Norm

[collecting]

... Tom Wittmann with his dagger starts at 08:40

https://youtu.be/MB5KfMbGVfU

[Norm F]

... Tom Wittmann with his dagger starts at 08:40

https://youtu.be/MB5KfMbGVfU

Yep, that’s where I got the images of the Wittmann broken-blade example posted earlier in this thread. Despite the romanticized interpretation of the broken blade, as mentioned previously, it’s more likely a parts dagger in my opinion given the backwards orientation of the Eickhorn blade and the missing dedication.

Best regards,
—-Norm