Craig Gottlieb-SA Birdshead Dagger

[Jo Rivett]

The daggers have been highly regarded for 50 years, and now, all of a sudden, they are ugly fakes?

Yes, Highly regarded by collectors and People who were, and still are, willing to ...believe these nice colorful pictures printed in books with no footnotes or reference to period information or anything Historically connected at all... without questioning why there is no substance to the presented facts, and claims made.. yes, the community has always been faced with these collectors, and indeed thrives off them. Aaah, those that collect everything, yet know nothing., those who claim to collect out of an interest in History, yet know so little about it...

So blaming the whole debacle on Craig is sheer paranoia.

Why not ?
Most of what he has posted in his Items defense, and tried to feed us as "fact", well, it turns out that most of it is Gobeldy Gook.... you might not take offense when someone treats you like a 5 year old, and answers your questions in a manner that makes it feel as if you should never dare have questioned, or asked in the first place...(then find out later they fed you hogwash anyway)
Cogwheel, maybe your loyalty is clouding your reasoning a little, i dunno..... maybe it would be better if we all turned into sheep.. and just droned around collecting, never daring to question, never taking more than a superficial interest in the items we collect.... after all, the caption under the Superb A4 size photo- says what "it" is... trust...follow.!... bleet bleet....

Not me, not on a $10.- item, und schon gar nicht für $70,000 x 2 ! It`s time people started standing up and asking more questions, even when things get very uncomfortable..... if the smallest sale of a WHW Tinnie here on the eStand can be up for question, and the seller made to account for his item & Description, then why not these kind of items, and others that mysteriously turn up on in certain parts of the world, and come with little more than pompous stories and a point to a mention somewhere in an old Reference book written by a shifty dealer-cum-author... how can you even swallow this ?

[cogwheel]

Txgauleiter: I already stated several times over that mine is a replica and any implication that this here thread is going to change anything is nonsense. Mine is still a beautiful TR dagger with a maidenhair damascus blade and a true ivory grip, and that is what I paid for. There are several daggers in my collection that I assembled myself from left over parts. You see, I don't really care about history or personalities, nor do I care about money. I just like nice daggers. Here is one example - you get the idea.

[Jo Rivett]

You see, I don't really care about history or personalities, nor do I care about money. .

Maybe you should stop posting here, you have no interest in History and are therefore the wrong person to be discussing any of this with...You will have no answers for us that contain anything useable if you dont care about History.In light of what you just posted, well it`s brought a smile to my chevy chase, and made me disregard everything you have tried to post on this thread. What a thing to say, Hopefully there is something in your life that you do care about.....

Craig Gottlieb was right maybe, when he said that People vote with their dollars...10/10 though, for once more proving my point about the modern day collector and history. Its guys like you that allow for this kinda item to get into books, and collections, and placed wrongly into a time and place it should never be connected with.. Disneyland is what it is and i can now see why you would even think that the Pelican Crack-a-jack quality could be Third Reich German craftsmanship... not having the foggiest on history and all that.....

[Don D.]

Guilt by association. The Atwood-Gottlieb connection is too great to ignore.

Statements like this add nothing to the conversation and can be seen as a snipe at a person. I would recommend refraining from this type behavior and stick to discussing the dagger.


Where is the proof Atwood had these made? I must have missed it when it was posted. Surely there is some paperwork somewhere.....

[David Fettes]

Where is the proof Atwood had these made? I must have missed it when it was posted. Surely there is some paperwork somewhere.....

The issue here is.....where is the proof that he didn't have them made. I think it was on page 9 that proof was alleged to exist, so far (page 15) nothing to back it up. I am sure we are all awaiting FJS report on this.

p.s. Why did it take till page 9 for somebody to say the documents exist in the first place??

[Don D.]

The issue here is.....where is the proof that he didn't have them made.

Its probably sitting next to the proof Eichorn didn't make them.....

[cogwheel]

OK folks, lets start over. I'm going on the assumption that we are talking about the birdshead dagger in general, not just those sold by Craig Gottlieb. If I came across that dagger the first thing I would do is look at the text books on TR edged weapons currently available. And what do I find? They all show it as a true TR collectible with pictures and references to former and current collections they resided/reside in. There is not one single book out there that expresses even a smidgeon of doubt that this dagger is legitimate. This is all the information available to me as well as to you. Don't think for a moment that at this point I would listen to every Tom, Dick and Harry for their various opinions which would be subjective at best. Opinions are mostly frivolous and often tainted by personality references.

As I go through this thread I find a number of critics coming out of the woodwork who claim that they have suspected all along that this dagger is a fake. Why didn't they publish their 'proof' that would repudiate the information provided in current text books for the last 50 years?

Someone suggested that my viewpoint is somehow blinded by loyalty (to whom?). All I can say to that is that I rely on current and past text books for my information. If there is an alternative I would like to know.

[Jo Rivett]

All I can say to that is that I rely on current and past text books for my information. If there is an alternative I would like to know.

Its called doing your own homework, then again, you aint interested in History so you said, so you would be content in looking at colorful pictures and accepting blindly that if its published, its real.
You forgot to mention a vital point in your post, Not one single reference book backs up the claim that this dagger is real with a single piece of pre-1945 evidence, they all point to either Atwoods book, or the Two twins daggers books, that all, all copy and paste publishing with no facts or footnotes or period mention.

You have already told us why that is good enough for you, coz you have, quote: No interest in history. I do, and i don't believe everything pictured, and i sure as hell don't believe that this is a TR period, Typical Eickhorn piece. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you piece daggers together, and create fantasy pieces for your own collection, that you are somewhat unfamiliar with what, original, Third Reich quality is supposed to look like ? just a thought.

The Feldherrhalle dagger, now thats a "typical Eickhorn product"

ps: Strange, how we are now at over 200 posts, and not one single question we asked has been answered yet, or even the attempt made.

[Serge M.]

[QUOTE=cogwheel;4793559]OK folks, lets start over. I'm going on the assumption that we are talking about the birdshead dagger in general, not just those sold by Craig Gottlieb.

QUOTE]


It does seem that the thread had evolved to encompass both, which in IMHO I see it as a nutural progression as there seem to be quite a variety of variations both fake and purported originals.

On the dust cover of Tom Johnson's Dagger Books series Volume 4 is a nice large color photo of a Hilt shot what I believed at the time, and still believe, to be an original Birdhead dagger owned by Robert Mc'Carthy.
To study the subject I took a photo of that along with several marco shots that I found informative when compared to the original subject Birdhead on this thread. Are those OK to post here?


-wagner-

[mametz]

Talk about flogging a dead horse! anyone with a modicom of sense
can see this item for what it is, not even worth discussion
Regards
Mametz

[TxGauleiter]

yes the item is so worthless and obviously bad, even its original proponents, like the owner himself, dont bother defending any further...

[David Guist]

Hi if you are asking me you can post all the pictures you need. But they can not show a link in regards to a sales site.Best regards.

[cogwheel]

JF: You could say that we have different specific collecting goals. But thats about all.

Regarding that SA honor dagger, it is part of what I call my 'foolsgold' collection which consists of a number of daggers of undetermined or questionable origin including those that I assembled from mostly original parts. It gave me some insight into the effort required to finish and assemble such a dagger. And I didn't do it to please someone else. My point is that in this collecting hobby we don't all think the same and have the same narrow goal. Some collectors are pedantic purists while others are not. But there should be a place for all who have an interest in this hobby.
If everyone would ignore all the books because they are 'just a bunch a lies' and, instead, rely on archives and make frequent pilgrimages to Solingen the collecting community would be pretty small.

[TxGauleiter]

If everyone would ignore all the books because they are 'just a bunch a lies' and, instead, rely on archives and make frequent pilgrimages to Solingen the collecting community would be pretty small.

those that have that insight are telling everyone here the dagger is garbage, but youre ignoring them..

[Jo Rivett]

JF: You could say that we have different specific collecting goals. But thats about all.

Regarding that SA honor dagger, it is part of what I call my 'foolsgold' collection which consists of a number of daggers of undetermined or questionable origin including those that I assembled from mostly original parts. It gave me some insight into the effort required to finish and assemble such a dagger. And I didn't do it to please someone else. My point is that in this collecting hobby we don't all think the same and have the same narrow goal. Some collectors are pedantic purists while others are not. But there should be a place for all who have an interest in this hobby.
If everyone would ignore all the books because they are 'just a bunch a lies' and, instead, rely on archives and make frequent pilgrimages to Solingen the collecting community would be pretty small.

We agree
No, there are no books that i know of, that are 100% Full of cr4p, just a mixed variety that's all, and in some cases, further, in-depth research is required. In this case, it is clear from the missing footnotes, that no research has ever been done. This is why, we are all waiting for the promised and claimed "Period facts and info" that certain people claim to have. I told you in an earlier post, even books being printed right now, have fantasy and fake items in, claiming to be original. (I would be glad to PM you a few examples)