Question Relating to Police Swords

[TP Alexander]

Has the German Enlisted or Officer Police Sword ever been reproduced?
I know that reproductions are done on a lot of different items, but I can't find anything that indicates that the Police Sword has ever been mass produced in modern times. Can anyone answer in the positive or negative here??
Tim

[SwordFish]

I'm primarily a saber, sword, and degen collection. I keep a very close eye on what's happening with reproduction pieces. As far as Police and NCO, the answer is no. I've seen a variety of reproduction SS degens, which could coverted to police with the addition of a grip eagle, but havn't seen any straight police degen repros out there worth mentioning.

[SCHUPO]

The Polizei swords have been reproduced and modified. Since the SS and Police swords use mostly the same parts the main difference is the grip insignia or the pommel cap. Many have been "enhanced" over the years by switching out these parts, generally to convert original Polizei swords into SS. Since they are so easy to disassemble it is always wise to be suspicious of boths types of Degen. Having said that, Polizei swords are a much safer collecting bet than SS swords but one must be careful with both of them because the price of Polizei swords has risen over the years and the same parts can be used to make either sword.

The devil is in the details.

[SwordFish]

I'm with George. Totally agree. But, the elaborate a little, I have NOT come accross a police degen that was fake from the ground up..built from the factory as a repro degen. Again, the repros i've seen are peices that were made as SS degen repros, enhanced with various police pieces, grip eagle pressed into the grip, pommel cap. Some of the repro SS degens have interchangeable parts with legitimate SS degens, so we see mixed bag pieces sometimes...as well as mish mosh pieces assembled from various legitimate parts of police/ss degens.

The most common is the requim of a legitimiate police degen becoming an SS degen. Wham bam, haboom. There ya go.. an $800 degen becomes a $5000 degen. Nice profit margin from that type of "tom foolery". When it comes to degens, you need to know your stuff. Unlike various other pieces, you can't just feel your way through it with limited knowledge. I've been saving images and examples of the repro sabers, degens, etc throughout the years and intend to compile them in a shot essay to post on the forums eventually. If anyone is interested, I can email them the images of the fakes i've saved up until this point.


******On a side note, a new navy type saber has popped up. One was on fleabay recently and it was garnering bids. It's apretty bad reproduction, clearly a fantasy style saber. Obviously from China, from the same folks who brought you the hideous cat head Army style saber with the backward swas and the Weyersberg blade marking spelled "Wyresbergh" with the deep blood groove. I love these.

[pvluger]

from the same folks who brought you the hideous cat head Army style saber with the backward swas and the Weyersberg blade marking spelled "Wyresbergh" with the deep blood groove. I love these.

Uuuh...Swordfish....whatever do you mean? Do you speak of that rare beast thats the highlight of your magnificent collection? I know you posted a pic here somewhere.....

[james m]

I agree with the above observations and I as yet have never seen a "from scratch" police degen reproduction. However the prices on these have risen dramatically in recent years so I wouldn't rule it out in the future.
A rare example by Klittermann & Moog came out of the woodwork onto Ebay a few years ago and fetched around $1500. I believe a member of this forum was high bidder andI,unfortunately for me,was the underbidder.
I discussed this sword with Tom Wittmann and was told he'd never seen or heard of one by this maker and wished it had appeared before he published his SS book.
Jim

[georgecl]

Heres a site selling fake ss police style degen.
Poor quality, but I'm sure they will get better soon!

http://www.toledosword.com/pr/SZ910922TS.html#SZ910922


George

[SwordFish]

George-
That's actually one of the repro SS degens. Easy enough for somebody to add a grip eagle to. I still have yet to see a repro police degen as opposed to the numrous SS pieces.

AN FYI- some of the SS repro degens have Eickhorn MMs. One has the black solid squirel presumably etched onto the blade, the other just has the Eickhorn stamping.

The image below illustrates how poor the maker mark is on these repro pieces.

[pvluger]

Here are some scary Chinese repro parts pics I bummed off GDC...

[SwordFish]

The Chinese are the guys to watch. so are some of the Eastern Europeans. There are some pretty scary M33's floating around out there that have fooled some pretty advanced SS dagger collectors. I think they are mostly Boker pieces. A burn for $5000-$10,000 is a pretty hard pill to swallow. When collecting any SS blade, you really need to know your stuff. Very very dangerous...even some well respected dealers have been fooled by the well made repro pieces and I know some examples where they have inadvertently sold bad pieces to collectors without knowing it. You can only imagine the mess that creates when the debate starts to rage over whether the piece is good or not, and the collector has an uphill battle to prove his case and get his refund. Really scary when these episodes start happening. Sorry to digress from degens over to daggers, but we really need to really mind our pints and quarts. I don't collect SS. In the words of Snoop Dog, "never have, never will". With the repros out there, i'm happy I don't need to mix myself up in these. That being said, I really try and keep a close pulse check on what's happening with the market, repros, and collector trends.