DRK Hewer for review

[Darth2a]

Appears to be a PDL based on the linked thread. I just took some quick pictures to start the thread. Would you all like more detailed images?

[M.E.E.]

Appears to be a PDL based on the linked thread. I just took some quick pictures to start the thread. Would you all like more detailed images?

Could you post another picture of the disk? Also where is the Gesch?

[F J STEPHENS]

Drk hewer

Hello John Z,

Yes, it is a good point – How will we know an Eickhorn DRK Hewer when we find one ? It is interesting that neither the Hewer, or the DRK Leader Dagger show any trademark – and I strongly suspect that this was a specific requirement of the DRK organisation. Why should this be? . . . .

. . . . Well, I can only guess, but my suspicion is that the DRK authority wanted to show total impartiality – and therefore not be seen to favour any particular blade manufacturer. (A bit like the ethos of the original founding of the Red Cross organisation – to bring help and support to victims of mishap, without regard to their background or status.)

So it will only be by trial and error, of looking at the tangs of the hewers, that we might eventually find one that doesn’t have any marking stamped into it – or maybe one that does have some emblem that we might attribute to being indicative of the Eickhorn company. The fact that we haven’t identified an Eickhorn DRK as yet doesn’t prove it never existed – absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Likewise, I must respond to M.E.E. – who makes the sweeping statement that the Eickhorn Diplomatic doesn’t exist, regardless of the fact that an image purporting to be such a piece exists in the Eickhorn catalogue. I would like to point out that reference to the same dagger also appears in the Eickhorn company Price List ! I think it unlikely that Eickhorn would promote and offer a dagger pattern for sale which they were not actually producing.

Frederick J. Stephens

[F J STEPHENS]

Drk hewer

Image from Catalogue.

[M.E.E.]

Actually it wasn't my quote it was RonR's quote in the DRK post that I linked.

I just know at looking at 600 different eagles that I have only found 3 designs. The ones I listed above 2 are Klaas marked every time the tang is opened and the other 1 is either PDL or not marked. This includes officers and EM.

[F J STEPHENS]

Actually it wasn't my quote it was RonR's quote in the DRK post that I linked.

I just know at looking at 600 different eagles that I have only found 3 designs. The ones I listed above 2 are Klaas marked every time the tang is opened and the other 1 is either PDL or not marked. This includes officers and EM.

M.E.E.

I have noted your comments regarding the tang markings attributed to Klaas (some with “Kissing Cranes” emblem – yet others attributed to Klaas but having an unmarked blade tang); and then the P. D. Luneschloss pieces which are stamped on the tang with PDL within an oval.

Although the DRK dress/service dagger blades are unmarked, as to identification of the manufacturer, presumably for the reasons I stated in my earlier submission; there is an excellent reason that explains why an identification marking appears on the tang of the pieces, and it is this: In the event of a defective batch of dagger blades being provided (prone to damage or breakage) and a complaint made by the end user, an identifiable tang marking would determine the source of manufacture (or alternatively eliminate a suspected manufacturing source from blame). It simply makes common sense to have system that identifies a point of origin.

This brings me to the officer pattern dagger, as the only marking I have ever found on these is in the form of a letter “P” but in a reverse form – facing to the left as seen by the viewer.

Is there any consensus of opinion that considers which manufacturer this might represent?

Apart from Eickhorn, whom I believe did manufacture DRK pieces although one has not been seen and identified, I confirm the comment made by Ron Weinand in the previous thread (last year) that the company of Jetter und Scheerer, in Tuttlingen – trading under the brand names of JESCO, and Aescalup – also produced DRK Daggers and Hewers.

I also have a sneaking suspicion that there might by a potential fifth and sixth manufacturers who also manufactured the pieces.

Frederick J. Stephens

[M.E.E.]

Fredrick I will bow to your superior observations and use them to help with my own research. With that I have questions about the theory of uniformity you have, which is what is the point of the Klaas high brow and why is there no high brow officers (at least not in the years of studying every blade I find posted)? Why is it also that we as collectors always assume that the only tell of the 2 EM are the scabbard when there is very much evidence of differences between the eagles.

There is a theory that the single screw officers is a Alsco from several collectors but the 2 example I have been able to observe have the exact eagle and scabbard that the Klaas use (minus the screw). There is a difference between the scabbards between the 2 different eagle designs with Red Cross offices with the few pointed ridge (pdl) having different scabbard connectors than the standard round edged (klaas). This is the same with the few Klaas Social Welfare and the PDL Social Welfare they both have different scabbard hanger styles. Sorry if that is wordy I have no other way to describe it.

In regards to the different manufactures is it your view that they would have used one of the 2 patterns that are standard?

Thank you for the interesting discussion and I am looking forward to hear your thoughts.

[Darth2a]

More pics as requested with the slabs removed. No maker's mark that I can see. As far as scabbard fitting screws go, there are screws in the top fitting and none in the bottom.

[Darth2a]

One more.

[Darth2a]

Any further comments/discussion on this piece now that the slabs have been removed?

Thanks as always to all for their info and experience!