A MOST UNUSUAL ETCHED ‘MEMORY OF MY SERVICE TIME’ SHORT DRESS BAYONET.

Privately purchased at the time by the soldiers themselves or gifts from relatives, there are a huge number of variations of this etch. Some are extremely rare and beautiful and fetch quite large sums. I have has a great many of these over the years but this one is most unusual. Standard exterior with a steel, nickel plated hilt. Unfortunately this has some corrosion and pitting go the surface, but not terrible and the mortice lock and button still work. It has black chequered grips with unusual off-set rivets. The scabbard is a black painted, standard shirt bayonet type. The short carbine blade is in mint condition and is nickel plated. However, the service time etch is VERY unusual. It features a stylised ‘art deco type eagle and swastika with the wings of the eagle stretching all along the blade on each side of the eagles body. Underneath and deeply etched into the surface (as is the eagle) is the long ‘fur Erinnering an Meine Dienstzeit’ These are deeply etched out of the blade surface and the letters are gilded! The complete background panel that surrounds all this has background blueing to ensure all the letters etc stand out. The workmanship and quality is amazing.
Unusually, there is no maker on the reverse riccasso to identify the origin of this workmanship.
I’ve never seen another quite like it.

“The sale of Knives and other Edged Weapons are restricted to those aged over 18. Verification of age is required before purchase is concluded.”

Code: 4975