Rad Daggers!!!

[David C]

You sure?

Now that I have it in my hands I am convinced it's a fake. Not nickel silver or any sign of plating just plain steel. The scabbard fittings are very crudely made and a poor fit. The blade is significantly thinner than the real one I got from Peter Wahmond. You will notice there is a buffer pad discernible in the pics, they didn't come with buffer pads. This one is doing two jobs it is hiding the poor fit between blade/hilt and without it the hewer doesn't even fit the scabbard!!!!

Perhaps the most damning evidence is that the seller thinks he is being clever by ignoring my emails

Well there are ways and means.

David.

[Radcollector]

Hello David,

By an "Identical ALCOSO EM" i meant without the patent mark-It still seems odd that ALCOSO made daggers without the patent mark-but ive seen three ALCOSO EM daggers and all three wrere without the patent mark!!I will get to the bottom of that sooner or later -there has to be a reason why they were made without them-the most likely reason i can think of(Im guessing here!)is that they are early pieces,made before the regulations requireing RAD daggers to have the patent mark went into effect-the Alcoso i saw at the show was plated, had very nice,clean, tight fittings-the scabbard had about %80 percent of original laquer-the Alcoso maker mark looked cleaner than the one you posted-the blade on the one i saw had the correct thickness to the blade-the ARBEIT ADELT motto was very clean and deep-your motto looked very shallow in the pictures-something ive seen alot on fake HJ daggers-the fakes have a very faint etching usually-I pointed out what i thought was wrong with the lettering/logo on yours,the one i saw the lettering was much cleaner and the logo was straight,level with the bottom of the handle were the one you posted as sloped at an angle-I suppose they chose to fake the alcoso maker because they dont have the RAD patent makeing it easier to copy-less work not having to copy the patent mark-I saw the same RAD ALCOSO EM on germandaggers.com without the patent as well-the one I saw at the show looked %100 good to me-Craig Gottleib the head of german daggers.com was at the show I talked to him a bunch of times i should have asked him his opinions on that particular dagger,Im going to email him latter and see what he has to say-as for your dagger my gut feeling about stuff has been pretty good so far and has saved me alot of cash-I didnt like that particular ALCOSO from the beginning-you tried to be a good guy and honer your aggreement to buy the dagger and it seems like you got scammed!!again its alot easier to tell if things are ok when they are in your hand-and just from the pictures I had a bad feeling about that maker mark on that particular dagger(I explained why I didnt like that one in detail!!)I wish someone else could have added something to my concerns about that dagger,or at least aggreed with my opinions-we could have saved you $$$,Keep trying to email the seller!!!

regards Yancy

[David C]

Yancy

You did indeed advise against this one. I did take your comments on board but I took the risk. The seller was adamant that it was real and I had used a "Buy It Now" so call me a fool but I felt obliged to go through with it. I'll be much more careful with the BINs in future

On the bright side a miracle I have heard from the seller - he was away for the weekend - he has contacted the guy HE got it from and has been assured it is genuine (believe me it is not) but he is prepared to refund my money on receipt of the hewer. All I have to do now is convince him that I will return the hewer on receipt of the money You never know we may get there.

It does seem to be these Alcosos that are sans triangle doesn't it.

Cheers
David.

[Radcollector]

Hello david,

please let us know how everything works out with that,hopefully the seller will return your money!!

regards Yancy

[Paul V]

Rads

Tim

That is one super RAD!


STUNNING! STUNNING!


Thanks for showing


Paul V.

PVON

[David C]

Happy ending,.. I got my money back

Seller was an honest guy selling out of his field. He genuinely thought he was selling an original. When I pointed out the faults he was only too happy to refund.

right,. what's next ......?


Cheers
David.

[David Tiffin]

I have a question, were these ever made without the motto?

[Skipper Greenwade]

David,

I learned long ago to "never say never", but that would have been the very rare exception. I have never seen an original without the motto either personally or in a reference book. The only possibility that even comes to mind might have been in the case of a presentation piece that featured something on the blade other than the motto. Even that would be a stretch, though, because the reverse of the blade could have always been used for the presentation/dedication. As was the case with most of the other organizations, the motto was such a part of the RAD that even if one made it through the manufacturing/inspection/distribution channels and into the hands of a RAD man, he would have probably returned it.

Best,
Skip

[David Tiffin]

Hi Skip,
I feel the same way you do. I'm not a blade man but thought it on the odd side not to have the motto. The reason I asked is there's one for sale over at the GD.com site with a totally unmarked blade.
http://www1.hagenhosting.com/~german...uery=retrieval
There are no photos but a discription. Any comments?
Thanks.

[Radcollector]

Hello ,

very good news David C,Im glad to hear everything worked out OK -for pictures of the above mentioned dagger with no motto go to page 5 (maybe pg 6 by the time you guys read this!) of the e-stand,skip had it for sale there also with pictures-I too would pass on that one-Ive never seen another example without the motto-or read anywere about one without the motto-Im not saying that they never existed because I have no evidence to back that up,however I would definately pass on that one,there are to many 100% correct examples out there to take any chances.

Yancy

[Radcollector]

Hello,

just some added info regarding RAD hewers with no RAD patent,I saw one made by ACS solingen without the patent mark as well,Ive emailed a few dagger "experts" and asked them what they think about the no patent mark and the no motto on the blade,Im still waiting to hear back from them.


Yancy

[Skipper Greenwade]

Here's a photo of the scabbard of one of my more interesting RAD hewers. It's the scabbard of a standard RAD enlisted hewer by Carl Julius Krebs, but note that some enterprising RAD man affixed a leather pad to the reverse of the upper scabbard fitting by means of the throat retaining screws.

The 'finished product' very closely resembles a scabbard affixed with the later style hanger.

I wonder if Hans, Franz, Rolf, or whatever his name was got any money for his invention?!?!?

Best,
Skip

[Radcollector]

Hello skip,

very interesting when you get a chance could you post a few more pictures of that from a different angle maybe??Im still waiting to hear from the dagger "experts" regarding the whole ALCOSO no patent mark thing as well as the no motto on the blade-someone on www.germandaggers.com mentioned in a thread that he has seen a few daggers over the years with no motto on the blade,however that doesnt answer my questions about if these were good period examples and if so what makers made them like that-

regards Yancy

[Skipper Greenwade]

Here are a couple more shots of the scabbard pad

First:

[Skipper Greenwade]

And one more:

Kinda neat, huh?

Skip