Blue Paint on M73 New Pattern with 1920 stamps?

[Roman C]

Has anyone ever discovered blue paint on WWI - interwar German swords?

I have a New Pattern / M73 artillery sword (1916 acceptance, scrubbed crown and regiment markings, with a 1920 inventory stamp), and while taking some photographs recently, I realized there are small flecks of blue paint. Investigating further, I realize that this paint was apparently covering the entirety of the exterior of the grip, guard, and scabbard at some point. I'm aware black paint was a wartime regulation for scabbards, however I have never heard of swords painted blue, nor do I believe this regulation covered blued scabbards (as this one is).

When the blade is in hand, the remaining flecks are almost imperceptible (they are a very dark blue), however I left my white balance set incorrectly and it made the traces of blue extremely obvious. Irrespective of who decided to paint the blade, someone went through some substantial effort to remove the paint and was more or less successful. On the left the light blue arrow shows the paint in the texture of the grip, the white arrow shows paint on edge of the spine (there are small traces of the paint elsewhere on the scabbard and guard). A second picture with a normal white balance is a better representation of what it looks like up close and in person (click the images to see them in more detail)



Is anyone aware of possible explanations for this paint, particularly given that the entire blade, grip, guard, and scabbard were all painted this way? I'm inclined to believe this was simply a choice made by a previous owner to either protect or decorate the sword, however I'm curious if anyone else has seen anything similar, or if it may indicate something.

[Chopperman]

I can not think of any reason someone would paint the entire sword blue.
I'm guessing it must have been a wall hanger but why blue? No idea.

[Anderson]

While swords dropped out of service for front line infantry officers in WW1, they were more common with artillery officers in the early part of the war. What we do see is the field painting of swords with field grey paint in fitting with the subdued look. These grey painted swords do emerge from time to time. Was this sword originally one of these grey painted swords, where some one had added a bit of regimental colour for the hand grip? We'll never know. Could even have been a post war stage prop, or an accidental contact with wet paint. Nice regiment marked issued sword, the cross hatch means it was out of service. The 1920 means it was counted in the post WW1 arms inventory of the German forces.

[Roman C]

Fantastic context on grey painted swords appearing, definitely will need to do some additional research there.

I believe that irrespective of who did the painting, it was intentionally added by one party and then equally intentionally removed (perhaps a bit too aggressively, the patina on the scabbard is all but sanded off). Since both the scabbard and hilt bear the same color, seems to suggest the paint job was after they were matched, post-service.

Somewhat unusually, this particular blade is marked with an Ewald Cleff maker's mark, though Sword Manufacturers of Imperial Germany seems to suggest that they did not produce any blades after the start of the war, nor any of this pattern. A bit of a tangent, but hopefully of interest to someone out there.