Etched Fire Brigade Side Arm

[dragnet]

Ive just picked this bayonet up from a friends collection and as im intending to sell it on my website id like your opinions please, from a quick search of the net it seems these are very rare and highly reproduced. I collect German combat lids so have no experience of these etched items so any help would be gratefully accepted.

[dragnet]

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[tranchant]

fire bajonet

hello dragnet
for my opinion this engraved look GOOD original period ! this fire engraved are no common !
best regards
patrick

[JohnZ]

Is there a maker mark on the blade?

John

[dragnet]

Is there a maker mark on the blade?

John

Forgot to mention John , no makers mark.

[Bob Hritz]

I would be comfortable owning this bayonet.

Bob Hritz

[Billy G]

Unfortunately I don't like this bayonet. The hilt configuration looks to be Eickhorn, particularly with the elongated crossguard. While the unmarked blade is fine itself, the etch is definitely not an Eickhorn product. Anecdotally, Eickhorn was quite proprietary about their etches & while you may occasionally see an Eickhorn bayonet with an unmarked (or distributor marked) blade only, I have never encountered an Eickhorn bayonet with a non-Eickhorn etch.

The blade etch itself looks to be very nice & does not show the usual issues & poor borders & overall lack of quality that modern reproduced blades often have. But we have seen many postwar etched blades that are well done, particularly as of late, some of these have this same "frosted" area within the etch & around the lettering. There are of shortage of nice etched bayonets out there, how many period examples of a etched fire bayonet do you know of? I search them out & I can tell you there aren't that many at all.

But aside from the foregoing, what red flags, if any, can we see on the bayonet itself? Look at the obverse rivets. From the pics, the heads look oversized but even if they're standard period size, they're asymmetrical. This slight fact should make one look at this bayonet with a heightened sense of skepticism. I suspect someone took a decent blade & rehilted it to make it more desirable. Sorry, just my opinion only.

[JohnZ]

Billy:

I think that you are correct. It doesn't look like any Eickhorn etch that I have seen. And, I think that I have seen this etch pattern on another blade that was obviously wrong.

99 of 100 of these fire etches are just not right.

I would want to take a long hard look at the etch in hand before I would consider buying this.

John

[dragnet]

. I suspect someone took a decent blade & rehilted it to make it more desirable. Sorry, just my opinion only.

Thank you for your reply Billy, im a bit confused by your end comment, above. Do you mean a decent etched blade has been rehilted , or just a plain blade. Would this not have been etched by a faker whilst still together, i mean complete or would it have to be taken apart to etch the blade, and if it was taken apart, then put back together why would the rivets be ''not'' asymmetrical?
As mentioned i purchased the item to pass on , i do try my best to make sure my items are what they are, original TR period, before selling and etched items are something i do not come across a lot.
Seems to be 2 for and 2 against, anyone else with an opinion would be a help before i think of returning this item, Cheers for now, Pete.

[Billy G]

Hi Pete,

To answer your question, I don't believe they can etch blades while hilted already. One of the main issues fakers have is reassembling postwar etched blades to hilts since grip plates often break or chip in the disassembly process. It's also difficult to find period size rivets & not everyone can install the rivets like a professional, as can be seen on your example pictured here. What your example shows is amateurish & not something one would see on a period example of something that cost extra to produce. Professionally installed period rivets would not look like this IMHO.

What we have also seen is fakers disassembling a standard etched KS98 & putting the blade into either a fire or Pioneer hilt which would make an ordinary blade quite rare indeed. It's just not that simple a process although some fakers are completely constructing hilts from scratch with modern etched blades so the red flags to look for on old fakes won't apply to the new generations but don't worry, those new ones have things to spot too.

My feeling is this blade is an old reproduction that was added to a period fire bayonet hilt. The etch is generic & not specific military so it won't conflict with a civilian agency like the Feuerwehr. But we can't get past the non-Eick etch on an Eick hilt & the overall poor rivet placement as well as the rivets themselves. I wouldn't feel comfortable with this piece in my collection because there are too many unanswered questions with it. My advice would be to return it as soon as possible, if you can.

[Ron Weinand]

I am afraid Billy G. is correct on this one.

[Jenko]

Hi Pete,

To answer your question, I don't believe they can etch blades while hilted already. One of the main issues fakers have is reassembling postwar etched blades to hilts since grip plates often break or chip in the disassembly process. It's also difficult to find period size rivets & not everyone can install the rivets like a professional, as can be seen on your example pictured here. What your example shows is amateurish & not something one would see on a period example of something that cost extra to produce. Professionally installed period rivets would not look like this IMHO.

What we have also seen is fakers disassembling a standard etched KS98 & putting the blade into either a fire or Pioneer hilt which would make an ordinary blade quite rare indeed. It's just not that simple a process although some fakers are completely constructing hilts from scratch with modern etched blades so the red flags to look for on old fakes won't apply to the new generations but don't worry, those new ones have things to spot too.

My feeling is this blade is an old reproduction that was added to a period fire bayonet hilt. The etch is generic & not specific military so it won't conflict with a civilian agency like the Feuerwehr. But we can't get past the non-Eick etch on an Eick hilt & the overall poor rivet placement as well as the rivets themselves. I wouldn't feel comfortable with this piece in my collection because there are too many unanswered questions with it. My advice would be to return it as soon as possible, if you can.

Billy G your explanation makes sense to me and I think I have actually learnt something reading it.
Thanks Jenko