Ernst Busch Made WW1 German Trench Knives

[MilitariaOne]

Greetings all, I thought I’d share some pictures of two recently acquired variants of the WW1 era Ernst Busch made German Trench Knives. In short, they came in a metal (Steel) handled and wooden handled version. Also included I’ve included a picture from this book http://www.amazon.com/GERMAN-COMBAT-...+combat+knives
showing a WW1 German Soldier wearing one of these style knives. Both scabbards have the standard flower patterned snap stamped keepers and neither has button holes on the rear. One is made of standard grade leather, the darker one is made from a pebbled textured economy leather.

Oddly, the steel handled one is only slightly heavier when the pair are held with one in each hand.

Regards,

Lance

[Wagriff]

Nice pair! And Welcome to the Forum!

[Reibert]

Welcome, Lance !

Very nice Armeedolche, thx. for showing !
IMO, pretty scarce the Busch, showing the metal handle !

What´s the lenght of your Busch, showing the wooden handle ?
The blade lenght of my Armeedolch, made by Busch, measures only 13,44 cm !

Best regards,

R.

[MilitariaOne]

Greetings Reibert, thank you for your post and your kind welcome too. My wood handled one’s blade alone measures 16.5 CMs from the crosspiece to its point.

Yes, I was very pleased when I found the metal handled one, the seller did not realize the handle was metal he listed it as made from an “ersatz material”. When I saw that I realized it must be the metal handled variant or some other unknown type. It indeed turned out to be metal variant and as a bonus with most of its original black paint still intact.

Regards,

Lance

[Reibert]

The "origin" lenght of the blade of such Ernst Busch should measure 15 cm, (15,1 cm).

A collectors mate owned such Armeedolche, made by Ernst Busch, blade lenghts:
148 mm
131 mm
152 mm

[MilitariaOne]

I had used a Leatherman Multi-tool’s scale to measure it the first time. I printed out a Metric ruler and re-measured it and it turned out to be 152mm. I apologize for my initial poor measuring, probably why I’m not a machinist eh?

Regards,

Lance

[Mery Christian]

Thank you present on page my book, in the next month I print new book on the german knives with 240 pages and more 400 knives et bayonet knives. You can helpe me if you want.
C Méry

[Reibert]

for comparison:
E. Busch metal handle trench knife