RLB dress bayonet

[Rancid66]

I need opinions of respected forum members, about this bayonet.
Moderators please upload photos:

Thanks in advance.

Regards
Vedran

Photos uploaded;...LC

[Larry C]

According to Tom Johnsons write up,, this is supposed to be an RLB protoytpe.. and is also featured in Volume VIII of Collecting the Edged Weapons of the Third Reich

[Rancid66]

Is such a bayonet recorded anywhere else?
Is there a rule about it?
Also in Croatia NDH existed "Ustasha dagger M1944" whom nobody has ever seen, except for a few people, who sold it. (of course)

Regards
Vedran

[Larry C]

I dont think this protype was ever finished to completion as it lacks the detail seen in finished daggers with eagle crossguards..IMO this might of been one of those...."lets see how this looks" type of attachements and never was completed. The Eagle looks nothing representative of the intimidating Iron eagle type features of strength. No breast feathering,,Talons or eye features. Almost looks like a Hood ornament.
I also believe that when designing anything in the beginning,,all art work and images are not in its final stages,,before actual presentation. Regards Larry

[Wagriff]

I'm not liking this piece much,despite it being featured in books. As Larry said, it looks unfinished and the details have been either left off on purpose or never completed to begin with. Look at the ring around the swastika-it is all uneven in thickness. If just shown this piece by a seller, I would almost have to lean toward an altered bayonet here. It is, for sure, not something that I would accept in my collection. It's like someone tried to make a dagger out of a bayonet...It's hard to believe it is something period made by a professional company for the Nazi Government.

[Walkwolf]

I'm not a fan either. I'd like to see original drawings of this
dagger/bayonet though, as rough or final layouts and
ideas on paper would likely have been made up
before any prototype was produced.

If you are going to go to the trouble of making the
physical object, why a half-hearted attempt ?
You'd want an exact model that all others
would be copied from.........

[Rancid66]

Rivets are not WKC.
Simply WKC was one of the better companies.
Why would they do a half-done job?

Regards
Vedran

[Scout]

Iver never seen a design like that before.
Looks half-finished as mentioned.
Interesting none the less.

[gerrit]

If your are building a prototype and your one of the big Factory's in Germany then this is not what you will come up with.

my 2 cents:
This is more a thing build in a private shed.
Poorly fitted gripplates, and a non detailed eagle.
Then the scabbard: it has wear, a prototype should not have wear like that.
It was not even in testing/production fase, why on earth would somebody wear it?
Its a bayonet created by someone in his private workshop/shed just for fun i guess......

Cheers Ger

[Frogprince]

It sort of reminds me of one of the James Atwood "prototypes". And while a number of his postwar creations ended up in U.S. and later European collections (that turn up now and then). As I have been told by some senior collectors at one time or another, a substantial number of the less widely circulated things like his supposed documentation, "future projects" - as well as miscellaneous assorted parts ended up with one or more sources in the Eastern part of the U.S. Which is not to say that the fallout from Atwood's activities has not made its way West over time, but (IMO) has not been seen as often. FP