The Tom Kendall Heer Collection and Military Antiques

[PeterCollector]

Hi Tom, really nice dagger, with unique crossguard, which is perfect in every way! I saw several times this rare crossguard, but never so attractive like this yours on Klaas dagger. Tom, my question is, if you compare this early generic crossguards to for example Alcoso 1st. or Holler 1st. - they are almost same, pleas can you help me to find difference? I don´t have this daggers in my collection, but you have them, certainly know difference between them.

Many thanks for showing this dagger to us! Again great information a pictures!

Regards Peter

[heers68]

Very unique Klaas here Tom.. NO question though that it has all the traits we look for in a Klaas. This is the nicest rendition of this early guard I have seen for sure, neither of my examples have this level of hand work, Beauty! As you said, I have never seen this guard with the non-slant grip either.. a first! Congrats on this very interesting variation. Kevin.

[T Kendall]

Kevin - Thank you IMO your slant Plumacher with this guard is the finest dagger over all I have seen with this guard boy it’s a beauty.
Peter - These guards are all very close but when you are able to compare them side by side the differences are evident. I compiled this graphic to point a few points of interest. Note many more differences exist as you will see when you study these
1) Head
2) Breast
3) Feet & leg feathers
4) Line between breast and feet almost straight across on the early generic Type-2

[T Kendall]

Here’s a Klaas Type-2 I picked up at the 2014 SOS this guard also features much of the same Klaas hand work elements as the Early Generic Type-2 above. The level of hand work is all over the board on these Klaas army daggers strangely enough the earliest daggers have less hand work then the later pieces the type and amount of hand work can vary greatly even between pieces of the same vintage.

[Silberkreuz]

Hi Tom, I must say your photography is very good and professionally displayed, as to your collection, an absolute pleasure to see. I too have saved this to bookmarks etc. Thank you for sharing.

Regards SK

[PeterCollector]

Hi Tom,

finally I can clearly recognize the difference between these similar crossguards, on one photo it is very easy to find specific and unique attributes of each crossguard. I appreciate your help, because this early crossguards are sometimes mystery to me, and of course, they are almost impossible to find and add into collections, so photos are very helpful!

Your next Robi Klaas daggers is also nice! Still waiting for mine!

Thanks for help Tom and for great photos!

Best regards Peter

[gerrit]

Hi Tom,

about the Klaas you showed with the early generic, i could have sworn it was a Holler.
Ivan offered me a similar one, but i passed, thinking it was a Holler.
Thanks for showing the 3 look a likes next to each other!

Regards,
Ger

[T Kendall]

Many thanks guys-I really enjoy sharing and discussing Heer daggers! I’m glad to see many of you are serious Heer collectors and appreciate the configurations and variations abound in the field.
Peter-Glad the comparison helped keep looking you never know when one will pop up many of the dealers don’t know the crossguards. I will say if you see an early Plumacher or Axt it will almost certainly have this crossguard
Ger-Its funny I saw this dagger sit on the E-Stand for some time before I pulled the trigger. I recognized the rare guard but after I began to study it a bit I realized that it exhibited all the signs that Klaas had enhanced this guard and verified the legitimacy and desirability of this configuration for me. Ivan digs up some great daggers and I was very pleased to get this one from him. Fortunately for us Ivan doesn’t collect army daggers …. Well unless its says Pack on the blade!

[dr73]

Some beautiful Klaas heer daggers you show here Tom. The pictures in which you compare the early generic crossguard of your new Klaas dagger with the early Höller and Alcoso guards was very useful to me. It seems Klaas used quite a few different crossguards. Like the one that was recently shown by Ger. That one was equiped with an enhanced Pack guard. Personally I'm a big fan of the in-house produced Klaas guards like the one you picked up at the last SOS. That's an amazing piece. Thanks for sharing

Danny

[T Kendall]

A recent pick up. I was excited to pick up this early Anton Wingen slant. The dagger is fitted with what I classify as an early generic Type-3. The guard at first glance can be mistaken for a Pack but upon studying it you can see unique differences. The breast the head and wreath seem unique to this guard also the feet follow the curvature of the wreath another unique feature. This guard is extremely rare and only recently acknowledged as a unique variation this example is likely the best defined of the less then a handful known to exist at this time. This guard still shows eye and beak definition lacking in other examples the head details obviously didn’t hold up well during normal wear. The beautiful pommel I have dubbed the palm leaf pommel its quite striking and unique take note of how thick the stem on the leafs are as well as the acorn detail - interesting you routinely see this pommel paired with this guard look at the Tiger in my collection same crossguard and pommel. I have seen one other example of this guard on a Wingen also noted examples by Tiger-Klaas-WMW (Max Weyersberg)