Puma dress bayonet, long, help please

[Rescue190]

I picked up a run of the mill long dress bayonet that I thought was original. I am now questioning this bayonet from the poor maker striking of logo and more so Solingen marking. The frog and scabbard appear to be correct. The blade length is 9 7/8" or 25 cm . I could not find a good comparison to a light strike long example or even a short example. I did notice the washer was missing but have seen quite a few examples that do not have the washer on the blade. Should this have had a washer when leaving the factory? I think the insert in the pommel shows age or is a fake as I do not have enough knowledge for the fine details and I guess even the overall details. All thoughts and opinions are appreciated. Thank you for looking.
John

[AZPhil]

I'm not an expert on dress bayo,
But that PUMA has honest wear to it and I found this pic of an original with a poorly done stamp.


The rest looks good, But wait for an expert to chime in.

Semper Fi
Phil

[HolidaysSmokeWagon]

It looks good to me I've sold quite a few 98k bayonets and like AZPhil said yours has honest wear and looks to be period. The pitting in the Nickle finish and the leather frog has perfect amount of age those areas are hard to fake but I'm not an expert but I've handled a lot of them and to me it checks out, but as always with German militaria keep an open mind to it possibly being newly made. This stuff is tough. Best of luck to you.

[Anderson]

I'd say authentic late production example. Appears to be a nickel plated zinc alloy hilt, it would have originally had a leather buffer but these often lost. The frog is a combat one, not a dress frog. Compare with my Puma, an earlier steel hilt, and you can see some pommel differences around the bird beak, but Puma may have had the alloy hilts supplied by another maker. Mortice button differences too. As we often see quality declined from late 1930's.

[Sleepwalker]

Hi,

you have an original Extra-Seitengewehr / Walking out Bayonet made by Puma. Everything ok with it. The felt in the groove had already been visited by moths.
These bayonets were bought privately, were not intended for service, nor were they delivered for service. They were much weaker in construction (the handle was a corrugated blade, the handle was made of galvanized zinc) and were only intended for decoration.

The frog does not belong to this bayonet. It's from an official Bayonet. This type includes an extra frog made of patent leather and a walking out knot.

[Sleepwalker]

Maker: Puma-Werk, Lauterjung

Die PUMA Chronik | Uber PUMA | PUMA GmbH IP Solingen

[Rescue190]

Thank you for the information, pics and links. Much appreciated. I still have a hard time figuring out the patent leather from vs the military frog. I have seen some that looked like smooth polished leather and others claiming to be patent leather that look like a military frog. I thought it was frogs without maker and date that were dress bayonet frogs. I will have to learn more.
John

[Anderson]

" I still have a hard time figuring out the patent leather from vs the military frog."

Here you go John, a couple of photos of a bunch of my frogs. Hopefully the clear difference is apparent. The combat frog for the military S84/98 is both larger and of heavier grade cow leather than used with a KS98 "walking out/parade" bayonet. Also notice the obvious rivets on the combat frog, and none except maybe on the back with parade patent leather frogs. The parade frog leather is effectively shoe leather and high gloss finish that actually softens and melted and cracks over time. So you can find the marks of the grip plates pressed into the leather of some frogs. These parade frogs were worn with the light weight dress belt that went with the waffenrock tunic.



The frog used with the Fire dress side arm was a little different again (not pictured here).

[Sleepwalker]

Hi,

that's what private pieces look like