Kriegsmarine Höller etched blade reproduction

[3rdreich]

Hi All,

Is this blade legit or reproduction please?
It’s being sold in a German auction house.

Thank you

Liam

[Larry C]

Beautifully executed blue panel etch ...but not for me to decide if its authentic.
Its too clean and perfect for my liking..but wait for Oleg or Danny to further comment.

Regards Larry

[Drambejz]

This is not original. This "U boat" panel is seen on post war replicas (gilted on artificial damascus blades as well). The original U boat panel looks different and is only found on KM daggers from Klaas.

[3rdreich]

Thank you!

That’s what I suspected. I had seen the previous thread mentioning only Klaas made the U boat etches. I didn’t know if any new information had surfaced since.

I’ll stay clear of it then.

Appreciate the help!

Regards
Liam

[Anderson]

The thing with evaluating etched blades is you cannot simply rely on quality to determine authenticity. You must dig into the history of the design, who owned it, how often it was produced and other known copies. In this case the execution is high quality, so questions must focus on whether Holler ever produced it. This design is seen on other maker daggers less well etched and clearly a fake. What we must always keep in mind is that in the early 1960's the likes of Jim Atwood were seeking out Solingen craftsmen (Paul Muller among others) to re-create etched works from the Third Reich. This might be one of them, or a completely new etching by a skilled etcher.
In the early days of TR blade collecting few collectors understood the origin of etching designs and fakers could reproduce them on any maker's blade and few collector would realize the design and maker did not go together. That has larger changed and many old fakes are being exposed as they come onto the market again.