Mint Government Official-Gold

[Ed Johnson]

I have been researching these daggers for over thirty years along with Tom Wittmann and more recently Tom Johnson. Two documents have always intrigued me regarding the GO and Diplomat daggers. Johnson vol. 2 presents the text of a 1940 Die Klinge article presenting the new Diplomat sword and dagger and states the eagle on the dagger faces to it's right. Angolia vol. 2 on Swords, p. 272, presents a photo of the sword and dagger side by side, apparently from a 1941 Alcoso catalog, again seemingly showing the dagger eagle head facing its right, although hard to make out. Also, of course, is the well known Eickhorn catalog again showing the eagle head facing its right. However, the thrust of the books on the subject since then is they have always taken the position that the diplo dagger eagle faces its left. This seems primarily due to the fact there are very few of these daggers compared to the GO daggers. Another one of those TR anomalies!