SS Leader of Red army - opinion

[Ostbat]

Sirs,
What your opinion - this dagger the original or a fake?
Thank.
Igor.

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[Rhys cartwright]

dont like the looks on the blade it look a but brown bit i cant c any falts with but u betta ask same one els

[Frogprince]

Igor, I like the chain especially as shown in the next to last image. It’s a rare pattern that has not as yet been included as such in any books on the subject. It follows that the scabbard should be OK. What is off-putting is trying to reconcile the very obvious corrosion that is present and why and how it attacked some components the way that it did.

With that much corrosion I would normally expect to see more evidence of it on the scabbard and the blade has a couple of issues as well. But the presence of a Red Star is not one of them. If it checks out OK I don’t think that it was for a “SS Leader of the Red Army” but believe that it could have been a Red Army soldier’s souvenir that had the star added. But that is just an preliminary opinion from what I have seen in the past on other captured items. Regards, FP

[Nathank]

errm kinda looks a bit odd to me... the first thing is that officers daggers never came with a makers mark on hte blade... so it looks like maybe someone has got the officers scabbord and added the fancy stuff to the hilt...

i wouldnt go for it IMHO

[Bernie Brule]

I like it. I agree with Frogprince in that it was likely a Red Army Officer that "captured" it as a souvenir and had the star added. We'll never know. Standard issue M36 daggers did not have maker marks on them but many SS men used their early daggers in an M36 scabbard. That could be the case here.

I acquired an RZM dagger that had a lot of corrosion on the blade and fittings but the scabbard was near mint. Bought it from the vet's son that brought it back. So that combination would not be an issue with me.

[Skipper Greenwade]

I think since we're dealing with a dagger that was modified - during the period - it is not unreasonable to assume that the entire 'package' existed and/or was carried by a proud Red Army soldier during the war

Would be difficult to assign a value to the piece ( a classic case of "whatever the buyer is willing to pay for it"), but it is interesting nonetheless.

Best,
Skip

[Larry Lipps]

Because the SS runes have been removed and the grip eagle replaced with a star, it very much appears to me that it was a war souvineer. While it's an interesting piece, I would think the modifications would somewhat devalue it in relation to an original. I've never heard of a third maker of SS chains and would be interested to hear additional information on that aspect as well.

[Frogprince]

Larry,
I did a write-up a while back on the subject of the M1936 chain link manufacturing variations for the GDC forum. I’m not quite sure what the rules here are for abstracting images presented on this forum and reposting them for discussion. Likewise while I would have liked to have done so I have never used an image from this forum to illustrate a topic elsewhere. (And conversely would not present a link or images from the GDC to illustrate a point here.)

Having said that I would draw your attention to the clearly visible septum in the nasal cavity of the skulls as seen especially in image #5. This is a rare skull type chain link variation. In the write-up I pointed out that the so-called Type I chains were later than the Type II (nickel silver) which is not factually correct and IMO very confusing. This chain type here is a contemporary of the so-called Type II in nickel silver which I think I called a "Type X" to differentiate it from any established preconceptions. The fact that both the nickel plated steel (so-called Type I and Type II) chain links are later manufacture doesn’t help much either (at least IMO) in sorting out what is what.

If someone can clarify what the rules are perhaps I can illustrate what I am talking about with the chain link thread I mentioned (or reedit the image presented here). But I don’t want to violate anybody’s forum policies just to make a point.
Regards, FP

[Larry Lipps]

As long as there aren't any copyright violations and credit is given for any works cited, there shouldn't be any problems.

[Frogprince]

Thanks for the input on postings from another forum. I did not want to be in violation of “company policy” as regards sharing information. Occasionally Wehrmacht-Awards.com threads are seen on the German Daggers.com forum and credit is given as to the source - so it makes sense that there is reciprocity. The topic was presented some time ago, but is I think fairly self explanatory with the approach being from a manufacturing standpoint.

The “M1936 SS Dagger Chain Manufacturers” thread from German Daggers.com:

http://daggers.infopop.cc/groupee/fo...127#9413060127

FP