A RARE AND DOCUMENTED EARLY SILVER HILTED LIONS HEAD SWORD USED BY SS OFFICERS.

Whist the SS Degen was introduced for SS officers in 1936, it was AWARDED and not available to all. Himmler presented these swords as a HONOUR and there was a certificate that went with them. Prior to this SS officers wore a variety of silver hilted lions head swords. Some were made with SS runes cast into the crossguard, others not. WKC actually featured some in their early factory catalogue and examples of these as well as other genuine silver hilted SS swords are pictured in Tom Wittmann wonderful SS book. It is shown on page 321. My example does not have the cast SS runes, but hilt, eagle, crossguard are identical. Tom identifies this as a Luneschloss made piece, even though there are no markings legible on the blade.
A heavily silver plated hilt with black celluloid grip and twisted silver wire wrap. A great early outstretched eagle crossguard. Beautifully defined lions head with red glass eyes. Black painted scabbard has original paint and the nickel plated blade is in near mint condition. The sword has an original wide black leather knot, with triple silver lines running through its length and a large black bullion acorn. A really nice looking sword and in my opinion was quite probably used by an early SS officer, as the configuration does not fit with anything else.

Code: 4867