SS High Leader Prototype Dagger - Anyone Ever Encountered One Before? Oldtimers?

[Serge M.]

Hi Colorado,
If John Pepera got one from a Vet I would believe in them. However all the ones out there don't seem to have a 1950's provenance. These were reputed put-togethers in the Mid-1960's when Muller was employed by James P. Atwood making post-war Himmler letter openers besides other things.

-wagner-

[DAMAST]

In my opinion these are all post war... Regards: James

[newton]

Howdy Jeff,
Your dagger looks like the one pictured in Stephen's Book. The photo is only from crossguard up but looks close as can be made from poor photo
Newton

[Notaguru]

I photographed the one LTC Tom Johnson had for one of my Edged Weapons Calendars. That one had a band damascus blade and a black grip. The scabbard matched the 2nd one shown in this thread. As I remember it the story was that a young guy in Germany found it and needed money to fix his motorcycle so he sold it. I don't know where or when this happened. I was also told that there were only a few of these made. Since then I've seen a dozen, how many are original, who knows. This is the first time I've seen the one with the white grip though.

[JoeW]

The basic design of this fantasy piece appeared in the Atwood book with subsequent legitimizing in the A-J-W books. Pure fantasy with absolutely no foundation of fact.

Angolia discussed the facts to some extent. Pepera's is totally different from these really grotesque designs considering the basic design of the 1933/1936. His is the only dagger with provenance and historical foundation.

[Mark C. Yerger]

I think Atwood's book has one similar in it but can't lay my hands on my copy at the moment.

[Frogprince]

Atwood shows the dagger on page 53 listing it as a prototype that is in his personal collection. Supposedly made in 1939 at Dachau, with a Damascus blade, as a replacement for the Model 1933. He states that it is silver plated, and the grip and scabbard are covered in black leather. With at least 4 copies all made by Mueller that were sent to SS headquarters in Berlin for examination and “proofing” (whatever that was supposed to mean). The scabbard in the photo besides being leather covered has three metal fittings, top, middle, and bottom with two attaching rings as was posted by Steve with comment # 15.

Books by all three authors have fakes in them, which does not make them real, any more than more recent efforts to get other fakes into books.

While I had quite a bit of trouble with the lighting values in the images posted (not a criticism as I have a lot of problems with lighting myself). The workmanship on this most current example does not even seem to be close to the one in the book. And from what I seem to be seeing, the pommel is not as well made as the crossguard - with such inconsistent results supposedly from the “Eickhorn” company circa 1939???

PS: From another perspective, the use of a white plastic grip that is still white, instead of having the color changes associated with cast phenolic resins is interesting on a technical level. Is it wood cored, or some other resin? FP

[Wim Vangossum]

I can find my thoughts in the explanation of frogprince. It's rather sloppy work.

Regards, Wim

[JoeW]

Okay FP, you always have to get technical with those long sentences and fancy three syllable words-phe..no...lic? If it looks like a duck........

[Frogprince]

Joe,
I am on board with the idea of a Mueller created fantasy dagger, along with some of the other items that he made for the “collector market” after the war. So if in this case “duck” equals a “fake”, no problem. With this particular example IMO simply being a later attempt to cash in on the demand for TR “collectibles”.

I also plead guilty to using long sentences. And periodically making technical arguments.

But I think that it could have worse. If I had (for example) used the full nine syllable "Cast - Phe - nol - Form - al - de - hyde - Res - in" description instead.
Best Regards, Fred

[Wim Vangossum]

I looked at all the pictures again. Did you see how faint the stippling on the reverse crossguard is compared to a common 2nd modell luftwaffe dagger? And how poor the SS runes are executed in the pommel?? Who would send such a piece to important SS men to ask for accepting their prototype: certainly not Arthur Eickhorn


Regards, Wim

[Colorado]

Interesting how threads can resurface after a couple years. I know longer own this dagger it belongs to another forum member now.

No doubt it was a repro, but still not a dagger encountered deliberately or even unwittingly by 99% of dagger collectors. Interestingly, after I posted I was PM'd more than once with an offer to buy the dagger.

[John Pepera]

This is the SS dagger that Joe W. referred to and is the only documented SS Prototype dagger with direct veteran provenance in the world.....

ALL of the others are figments of imagination regardles of stories.

[JoeW]

Amen Brother John, Amen. I should get this article prepped and have Roger publish it.......some day.

[Eric Von Rader]

Funny how there were some "tricky" people that would publish bad items in books and call them good! IMO some of this was done by accident but others used collectors ignorance to their advantage! I agree with John P this is the ONLY know real deal. Nice dagger! Really cool!