Early SA Dagger Production Numbers vs Frequency in Sightings

[Larry C]

This Thread will be about the differences between Early SA dagger Production numbers vs Frequency / Occurrences in sightings
I felt it was time to post more info on this as many SA dagger collectors are being led to believe that their SA dagger has a proper in fact a total number produced by the Producer which is inaccurate.

Included also are those NSKK daggers that were originally Early SA daggers
This thread does not include the study of Mid period or late RZM SA daggers.

Those of the community here that collect Early SA daggers have been misinformed about the production numbers associated from the most common to the rarest.
There are no definitive production numbers that can be found at this time. Much of the SA dagger community will see threads and posts showing so many great SA daggers and commenting on a rarity scale along with a supposed production number.

The rarity scale has changed since 2009 when Mike McAlavanah the founder and originator of the McSaar list and following after that Ralf Siegerts SA Reference.
Since 2009 those rarity scale numbers have drastically changed to where much of the early SA daggers that were once so plentiful..only now that the most highly produced are the only ones found more easily.
Eickhorn, Ernst Pack, The 3 Suhl producers and Haco to name just a few.

Those in the rarity 4,5, and 6 range are IMO now 8s and 9s...the 7 through 10 range will speak for themselves as they are hardly found and most likely still retained in collections today. Once in a while a few of those rarities do appear in the market place only for them to be scooped up and disappear again into another collection.

THE PRODUCTION NUMBERS

What has been found that on any Early SA producer and I will use a few examples seen below as I can not list all 215+ producers.

Muller & Schmidt ( Pfeilringwerk ) Quantity made : 7000 daggers
Ernst Pack - Quantity Made : 41,000
August Kullenburg - Quantity made : 1000
Herman Konejung - Quantity made : 12,000
Wilhelm Krieger - Quantity made : 1000
Kuno Meisenburg ( Undine ) - Quantity made : 3000

These production numbers appear also in a 2002 Fishers Reference which there are only a very small community of collectors will have this highly valued reference which shows something different and also " assumed " correct production numbers.
These numbers are far from exact and should be higher in count than what has been assumed and are only a vague estimation.

The sample production numbers seen above have been compiled together from 2002 Fishers reference.
Below is what has been written in Fishers Reference as stated as an " Occurrence " a current observation or sighting published in 2002.

Muller & Schmidt ( Pfeilringwerk ) " Original estimated quantity made 7000 daggers Occurrence 7/1000
Ernst Pack - " Original estimated quantity made 41,000 daggers Occurrence 41/1000
August Kullenburg - Original Quantity made 1000 daggers Occurrence 1/1000
Herman Konejung - Original Quantity made 12,000 daggers Occurrence 12/1000
Wilhelm Krieger - Original Quantity made 1000 daggers Occurrence 1/1000
Kuno Meisenburg ( Undine ) Original Quantity made 3000 daggers Occurrence 3/1000

Do you see the pattern in fractions above?
What do those fractions mean?

Example : 7/1000 means that 7 daggers or sightings during the 2002 year have been recorded assuming per 1000 produced.
Every recorded Early SA dagger with production numbers as seen In Siegerts Reference which those numbers
can be seen in Fishers 2002 Reference of over 215 SA producers.



There is nothing wrong with Siegerts SA rarity listing itself ( On a scale of 1 to 10 ) being on the same level as the Mc Saar listing
except that both listings are outdated due to less frequency in sightings of the less seen SA dagger producers.
The rarity scale is not what this topic is about.

The numbers that were assembled by John Fisher were all based on "Frequency in Sightings" ( FIS ) or as stated in Fishers " Occurrence "
I have added up all the production numbers posted in Siegerts reference and all equals out to 1,221,000 production daggers...based on the
2002 Occurrences.
History says that by 1934 there were a little over 3 million SA men. Lets say 3.3 million

3,300,000 SA men
-1,221,000 Daggers Produced = 2,079,000 SA men "without daggers" ?
These numbers do not add up!

Now moving on to Fishers ( 2012 ) Reference those production numbers dropped dramatically by 1/3
Same producers above except with less occurences but revised production numbers.

Muller & Schmidt ( Pfeilringwerk ) revised 4000 daggers produced
Ernst Pack - revised 22,000 daggers produced
August Kullenburg - revised 500 daggers produced
Herman Konejung - revised 7000 daggers produced
Wilhelm Krieger - ( no change ) 1000 daggers produced ...but over the years I have seen more than just one example and my best remembrance would be put at 5 Krieger daggers ( 5/1000 ) ?
Kuno Meisenburg ( Undine ) - revised 2000 daggers produced

Taking about 1/3 of those production numbers off of the 2002 data leaves alot more SA men without SA daggers ( Just less than 1 million )

The Main point is that there are no definitive production numbers and I believe there were produced alot more SA daggers than what has been assumed in Occurrences / Sightings.

Much of the SA daggers were destroyed during the bombings in Germany or were destroyed by the Allies after they took what they could as booty
a percentage of the surviving daggers are still in collections today as well as what is still undocumented in eastern bloc countries.
Much of these Occurrence numbers have been gathered in what has been sighted in collections..market place , dealers etc.
There are more SA daggers out there than what we really know.

The cottage producers such as August Kullenburg made a few more than just 1000 as this producer I had seen 3 in my collecting years.
Eickhorn and Ernst Pack are still the number one leaders in high production which Fishers has Eickhorn at 52/1000 each per the 3 logo types.

When the Collector gets to acquire an early SA dagger just know that in todays Market that almost all producers are becoming rare finds
especially now that the value is climbing near $2000 for Near Mint to Mint!
Those SA daggers not seen are out there and eventually will surface...a good hunter will be patient and those daggers will come out.

Regards Larry

[NSDAP Sammler]

Thanx a lot, Larry!

[SkylineDrive]

Larry... you alluded to one factor that affects not only the total number of SA daggers but also western collectors' perception of maker "rarity". That is the Russian occupation of Germany. This cannot be overstated. Ha, B, S, P, Om and Ost SA Gruppe stamps western collectors don't see as often were from areas in Russian occupied Germany. This affects an unknown number of daggers, but if one could determine how many SA members were in these Gruppe it might be useful. Also, makers we think are "rare" because western collectors had fewer sightings may not be rare to Russian/eastern bloc collectors and vice versa. I have heard about and seen photos of very large collections in Russia.

[SkylineDrive]

To further illustrate the importance of the Gruppe stamp in both the issue of the "missing" production numbers and in the perceived rarity of individual makers, here are five examples of makers whose daggers were exclusively assigned to those Gruppe located in Russian occupied Germany:

Ernst Bonnsmann Gruppe stamps Om and P.... a 9 on the McSARR
Carl Haas Gruppe stamp Ha... 10
Herman Hahn Gruppe stamp Om... 10
Emil Kaiser Gruppe stamp Om... 10
Wilhelm Krieger Gruppe stamp P... 10

This is just a partial list. We don't know how many daggers these manufacturers produced. We think they are "rare" because of so few sightings. In reality, they may have produced daggers in much larger quantities. There is also the possibility that there may be one or two small cottage makers who exclusively produced for those Russian occupied areas that we have never seen before.

[Rossi]

Great details to glean, learn and bolster knowledge. Thanks Larry and SkyLine. Appreciate the time taken on this thread from you.

[Larry C]

Also adding to Mr Skylines post are a few examples of producers who had both East and West Gruppe marks.

Henkels, J.A. …………………………………BO; Nrh; Om; OST; Wf; Wm .... ( McSarr 4 )
Herder, F ……………………………………..Nrh; Om; S; Sw; Wf; Wm ......... ( McSaar 3 )
Kayser, C.F. …………………………………..No; Om ..................................( McSaar 9 )
Pfeilringwerk ………………………………….No; Ns; Om; S .......................( McSarr 5 )
Seilheimer, Paul ……………………………...Om; S; Wf ............................(McSaar 7 )

Those daggers labeled with Eastern gruppe marks have never been counted as they have been less or to never seen which adds to the fact not all has been documented also lessening the assumed production numbers even further.

Regards Larry

[Roy.S]

Thanks Larry and Skyline, new things to study and learn.

[georgi]

Hello.
I do not have such detailed observations on this matter, but I think that there should be no expectations that nice and rare daggers from Eastern Europe will appear. I am from Bulgaria and it is more difficult for me to buy a knife of the BRANNIK organization from here than from an auction in Western Europe. In Eastern European countries after the end of WW2, it was very dangerous to own objects related to the Third Reich. For this, the owner of such objects could be sentenced very severely. People who owned such objects destroyed or threw them away. I don't know exactly what happened to the military trophies in Russia, but I guess most of them were also destroyed. If there were a large number of daggers in Russia, I guess they would have appeared on the market by now.
Regards Georgi.

[SkylineDrive]

Georgi... I respect what you have experienced in Bulgaria regarding this matter. However, logic tells us that 1) there was a substantial number of SA daggers that were sent to the Gruppe located in regions that later became occupied by Russian forces; 2) most of those daggers were still there when the Russian army arrived, and 3) those daggers did not suddenly materialize in the areas of western occupation. There are two questions left... how many were there?... and what happened to them? We will only be able to guess at how many there were if we can identify how many SA members were in those eastern SA Gruppe. As far as what happened to the daggers, I can assure you that there are (or were) some very large collections in Russia. Also, after the fall of the Soviet Union, some of these did begin to find their way into western collections.

[SkylineDrive]

Here is a photo by a Moscow collector of part of his collection ...