That WWI German & occasional Austrian Trench Knife Thread

[MilitariaOne]

Merry Christmas, to all!

An early and comparatively small Christmas present to share today. This is an Austrian “trench art” styled knife. The knife is made from what appears to be the salvaged remnants of an Austrian M95 Bayonet’s blade. It possesses similar cast aluminum type handles, which appear on the knife shown in post #44. The crosspiece has the “CE” over “WG” mark on it, which indicates the bayonet this 100mm long blade’s section was salvaged from, was originally made at Oesterreichsche Waffenfabrik-Gesellschaft (Austrian State Weapons Manufacturing Company) in Steyr. This firm is still in business today, known simply as, Steyr. On the obverse of the crosspiece, there is a stamped letter “B.” I assume, this is a remnant of the bayonet’s original regimental ownership markings. On the “1917” dated side of the handle, you can see the bottom of an Austrian rifle shell’s casing head-stamped with “HP” for Hirtenberger Patronen-, Zündhütchen-und Metallwarenfabrik A.-G. - Hirtenberg, Niederdonau, Austria. No, it’s not an "amazing" trench knife, but it’s still pretty folk-artsy cool.

Unfortunately, I have no contemporary images of a similar knife to share to accompany this post. Lastly, I do hope Santa was good to you today!

V/r Lance

Double click on images to enlarge.

[Chopperman]

Merry Christmas, Lance

[rbminis]

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you as well Lance!
Ralph.

[unimarc]

Merry Christmas to you Lance , and thanks for all the interesting knife posts ;-)

Mfg
Marc

[MilitariaOne]

Happy New Year All!

This time, we have another manufacturer marked Leupold trench knife; in this case, Omega out of Solingen. Interestingly, the company is still located there. The blade measures 135mm, but was originally longer as the point has been re-tipped. Easy to come by these knives unmarked, it is the manufacturer marked ones that are a challenge to collect.

Happy Hunting in the New Year!

Regards,

Lance

P.S. I hope you enjoy the photo of the kid wearing one of these types knives as much as I do.

Double click on images to enlarge.

[Chopperman]

Happy New Year, Lance.

[unimarc]

Happy new year Lance,
And nice looking knife and photo of the kid .
I saw another pic with a small hitler jugend boy with his mother, he wearing a Demag knife bayonet with metal handle ! I was too stingy to buy it, I regret that now :-(

MFG
Marc

[MilitariaOne]

Happy new year Lance,
And nice looking knife and photo of the kid .
I saw another pic with a small hitler jugend boy with his mother, he wearing a Demag knife bayonet with metal handle ! I was too stingy to buy it, I regret that now :-(

MFG
Marc

I saw it too, but did not buy it either.

V/r Lance

[unimarc]

Exactly the one ;-)

Mfg
Marc

[MilitariaOne]

Greetings all,

This month (OK, I’m one day early ) we have an unmarked private purchased knife with a 159mm blade. This fixable to a rifle (i.e. bayonet) model comes in an all bright finished variant too, but this is the darkened hilted version. Note: The contemporary photo shows a variant without a press stud, but it is a similar type and close enough for our viewing purposes. There is some speculation amongst collectors that this example was manufactured by Pack, Ohliger & Co. GmbH (became Ernst Pack & Söhne in 1922) due to the off centered placement of fasteners used on the handles, which are notably similar to later Ernst Pack & Söhne marked products, but as we all know speculation is just a fancy word for guessing. Ah the eternal mysteries of militaria collecting they can almost make you want to stop collecting… NOT!!!

Happy Collecting!

Lance

P.S. BTW, the eagle is the second coolest Imperial Era patriotic coat/hat rack ever!

Double click the image to enlarge.