weimar era sawback bayonet?

[Sleepwalker]

Yes, but this is not correct...

The German Government had great Problems with many many WW1 weapons were used by the people in most illegal ways. Privat person have, Gangs have, Freikorps have etc etc. The Instability of the Situation, because of the danger of a coup or a rebellion, makes the German Government to to pass 1920 a new Law. This called "Gesetz über die Entwaffnung der Bevölkerung" (Law on Disarmament of the Population). You can rwad here: documentArchiv.de - Gesetz über die Entwaffnung der Bevölkerung (07.08.1920)

To be able to distinguish weapons in the hands of less common
and armed forces from illegal the official weapons got a "1920", less common "1921", stamps, because of the date of the Law.
After 1-2 years this stamp was superfluous and were not used. In the regulations of stamping from 1921 you don´t find the 1920 orders any more.

Here are the internal orders of the Reichswehr from 01.08.1920

[Frogprince]

I should have checked my hardcopy information first, and have no argument with the German Army efforts to disarm the civilian populace. With the Reichskommissar for disarming the civilian population reporting one number for the arms and ammunition turned in, but a member of the Inter-Allied Military Control Commission (Inter-Alliierte Militär-Kontroll-Kommission) reporting that of the 10 million rifles manufactured during WW I only 1.3 million were turned in. And with a bounty paid for each of the now forbidden weapons, the markings were to prevent the stealing of weapons from the Army to collect the bounties. Best Regards, Fred

PS: The chairman of the commission was the French General Charles Nollet, Richard von Pawelsz represented the German Reich as Reichskommissar.

[Sleepwalker]

A lot of this "lost" rifels were in stores of the so called "Schwarze Reichswehr" to hide (and use) them.

[AndyB]

Same opinion about the piece as SW and others, note the different letters, RC was stamped twice, visible under it, the refinish on metall parts was done by hand, evidently there are too many problematic stamps, should be compared with similar piece of Erfurt and same period.b.r.Andy

[Frogprince]

Same opinion about the piece as SW and others, note the different letters, RC was stamped twice, visible under it, the refinish on metall parts was done by hand, evidently there are too many problematic stamps, should be compared with similar piece of Erfurt and same period.b.r.Andy

Andy, as I stated not something that I would have been interested in for myself, with the bayonet obviously refinished by somebody well after the fact (ie: more recent/post manufacture) it makes it hard to tell when certain things were done, being in agreement that a comparison with a completely untouched example of another bayonet from Erfurt I also think would be very helpful.

Unfortunately while it's not one that I have, I do have an untouched unit marked KD89 from about 10 years earlier that is both maker and Erfurt marked. The sword having the different Imperial style inspection type of stamps on the various different components, it also has some different early style stamps on the bottom of the blade besides those on the top which is not common.
I have no ready explanation for that as I haven't looked at it for years, and am having a vague recollection of some "RC" marks seen on swords that might have had something to do with arsenal inspections/reworking?

With my point being that I think some more work should probably be done before passing a final judgement, because I'm also having some recollections as it regards legitimate additional markings as seen with various period guns that are fairly common, but not something that I've been as actively involved with as I've been in the past. With Best Regards, Fred

PS: Thanks for joining the discussion with your input.

[michal19]

very interesting meritoric thread was born,thank You all Gents