German M1884/98 Third Model Bayonet and Scabbard
Dated 1940 A.D. Comprising a knife bayonet for use with the Second World War 8 mm Mauser Kar 98k rifle; fitted with resin grip scales and spring release button; scabbard with original throat and chape. See Capwell, T., Knives, Daggers and Bayonets, Lorenz, 2009, p.180, for general type and details.588 grams, 40.5 cm (16 in.). Property of a Luton, UK gentleman, by inheritance. The bayonet offered here is an example of the third pattern of bayonet manufactured in 1927-1930 and again in the period 1934-1935, with this specific example having been produced in 1935. In an attempt to keep their identities a secret, the makers of these weapons stamped the blades with a letter/number code, a practice they repeated for the scabbards. This scabbard bears the code for 1943, although it was double struck. Both blade and scabbard in this instance were produced by E. & F. Horster & Co. of Solingen, and the weapon is apparently a pre-war example that was captured and reworked in eastern Europe, likely Yugoslavia. The plastic grips such as those used on our bayonet, and typically found on M1884/98 III bayonets, are made from a phenolic resin. Owing to a shortage of such resin in Germany during WWII a substitute moulding compound known as type 41, which contained a much lower percentage of resin, was adopted in January 1943. [No Reserve]