what is an Atwood fake ??

[ibrahim ahmad]

Hi all,

Ive been reading past posts in this forum and noticed that members mentioning an Atwood fake/reproduction of certain edged weapons.
3 questions to ask,;-

1) Does the name Atwood refer to Major James P. Atwood, the author of the book "The Daggers and Edged Weapons of Hitler's Germany"?? From what i read it is him.

2) How reliable is his reference book ??

3) Whats the story behind these Atwood fakes ??

Really appreciate for any help given. Thank You.

Cheers,
Ibrahim,
Singapore.

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Ibrahim, yes "Atwood" is Major JP Atwood.

The book is now very dated. I don't own it myself, but is it interesting to read from the point of view of when it was first written.

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.

Hope this helps?

Cheers, Ade.

[Ron Weinand]

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. 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.
Ron Weinand
Weinand Militaria

[ibrahim ahmad]

Hi guys,

Thank you everyone for all the kind info given <!--graemlin)-->

Well one of the main reason i ask is because i recently bought his book & and it had this interesting dedication with both Jim Atwood & Rachels signatures. Anyone has a picture of this guy?? It would be great for new comers like myself to know the old time collectors/authors.

Cheers,
Ibrahim,
Singapore

[Vaughn O.]

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.

Vaughn