A part-parkerised / blued S.98/05

[trajan]

This came my way, as yet one more addition to my ever expanding WAFFENFABRIK MAUSER 98/05 W/17 collection - well, not much else pops up over here in the way of imperial bayonets! But I found it interesting partly because it has what seem to be replacement grips (Turkish?) and more specifically it looks to have been partly parkerised (or blued - I never remember the difference!), that is to say, the last 3 cm of the blade and ricasso has a grey-gritty appearance to it as here:

You can see the extent of this treatment in the top two photographs, and the bottom one shows the 'gritty' nature - the sun is a bit too bright to show the contrast more clearly but it is a distinct grey and not polished steel. I know that the Weimar issued 98/05's were entirely blued, but this is not the case here - and although the crossguard is corroded there never was a 1920 stamp on this piece, and nor were the original screws fitted with screwbolts, so its not, IMO, a Weimar piece. But, there again, I have never seen even a hint of blueing / parkerisation on any of the Turkish-used bayonets that I have seen, whether pre- and/or GW period Ottoman ones or the ones they got from Germany in 1917.

Anyone have any (printable!) thoughts?

TIA,

Trajan

[Mike_H]

It has probably been cleaned up by some sort of airbrasive process - not with a very coarse media but something like aluminium oxide or glass bead.

Mike

[trajan]

It has probably been cleaned up by some sort of airbrasive process - not with a very coarse media but something like aluminium oxide or glass bead.

Mike

I think I know what you mean (the gritty rough look), but don't think so because of the mark's regularity, covering the ricasso and lower blade area just like the 'blueing' on a P.1907, and the mark exists on the blade spine as well. But happy to be corrected!