Information on these two fighting knives...

[BrunoH]

Hi all,

I'm quite poor in German knifes documentation / reference, so, may I ask your opinion concerning these two fighting knives please?
I completely trust the guy who sold them to me and have no doubt concerning these two pieces but I would have been interested concerning more information I could get about them.

For instance, what does mean this 'w' marking on the blade of the first knife?

So any help and comment would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers.

Fighting knife n° 1

Pic. 1 (blade marking)



Pic. 2 & 3



Fighting knife n° 2

Pic. 4 & 5



Pic. 6 & 7



Note that the orange/red spots on the blade are not rust but rests of grease.

[evilmike]

In Gordon Hughes German Military Knives of the two world wars i'am struggling to match up with these two.


the second one is silimar too a unknown manufacturer 3rd reich period but i think the grooves have been cut by the owner, all the manufactured grooves seen in all other knives run at an angle. it has the right shape handle and blade but yours is in a different scabbard to the book suggests

as for no. 1 the W isnt prussian? sure someone else will know, i think these boot knives are great having picked one up recently but its a minefield, ive seen more copies and really poor condition examples and its putting me off

[Reibert-Austria]

Like Mike wrote, collecting fighting-knive´s is a minefield indeed ...

The "W", marked on the blade of the Kampfmesser der Luftwaffe isn´t prussian !
It´s a well known mark, (sometimes seen among other´s, ore none), on this kind of fighting-knife.

Grooves on the wooden handles of your other knife supposted to be pressed in, not cut !
But: maybe this work was made of the soldier himself ... ?

In the book of Halasz on page 200 you can see a fighting-kife like your´s, also with grooves.

German scabbard´s had to been furnished in black, not blued.

Your Kampfmesser der WL don´t look´s t bad to me but meanwhile they´re reproduced very, very "good" ... !

Indeed I do like both of your knives but only pic´s never can tell you the truth ...

Regard´s,

Reibert

[Reibert-Austria]

In Gordon Hughes German Military Knives of the two world wars i'am struggling to match up with these two. ...


... as for no. 1 the W isnt prussian? ... (

No !

The "W" on this particular knife never ever can be prussian !
Please read the text in the book ...

... look at page 42, there you can see the Kampfmesser of the Luftwaffe, (in the book false described as "Standard pattern WWII trench knife" ...).

There´re much more than only the WL-fighting-knife deserving the description "standard pattern WWII" ...

The same fighting-knife you can observe on page 47.

The "W" stamping you can see on the top left ...


Best,

R.

[BrunoH]

Hi,

Thanks to you Reibert and evilmike for your inputs and opinions.

Coming back to them, concerning the second knife, I don't think the grooves on the wooden handles has been cut (I mean, manually done). You can see that there is no 'mark' around one of the nail (the one of the middle of the handle).

Concerning the colour of the scabbard, I'll make some better picture because the artificial light (flash) doesn't give a good opinion about it.

Anyway, I clearly understand what you said and the fact that pictures are not enough in a lot of case. I would try to make better pictures with the sun light (when it'll decide to come back and raise )

Thanks again.

Cheers.

[BrunoH]

Hi again,

As promised, I tried to made some pictures with the day light.

Here are the result. You can see that the scabbard is black and not blue.

The two scabbard have not the same 'finish'.







Thanks again.

Chears

[sb98]

Hi Bruno,

Nice knives! The second one you have with the "Bowie" style blade is not very common. I have the same knife and scabbard. The grooves on my grips vary slightly from yours, it looks like they go the opposite direction. As you said, the grooves were put in during manufacturing. The ones on mine were made before the rivet was put in also.