Personalised Trench Knife

[mark holden]

Although not in the best of condition the original owner of this trench knife spent some time and effort to personalise it with knotwork on the handle and scabbard.

 

Regards

 

Mark 

[JMB1943]

Mark,

 

That is an interesting piece(s).

Is it a cut-down bayonet or a true knife?

Any markings?

Regards,

JMB

Edited 27 December , 2018 by JMB1943
Typo

[mark holden]

Hi JMB,

 

No markings and it is a 'proper' trench knife rather than a bayonet conversion.

 

Regards

 

Mark

[MikeyH]

Think it's German, my son used to have a similar example without the knotwork, it was stamped 'solingen'.

 

Mike.

[Michael Haselgrove]

Mark,

An interesting trench knife in that I have not seen one before that has a knotted or woven cover and, I agree, the owner spent some considerable time personalising it.  Mike is correct that your knife is definitely German.  These knives are often unmarked and are most frequently found with nine grooves cut into the wooden grips on each side.  Your knife, with a checker pattern cut into the grips, is less common.  An example is illustrated in "German Combat Knives 1914 -1945" by Christian Mery. 

Anyway, thanks very much for your post.

Michael.      

[mark holden]

Many thanks Michael and Mike, 

 

the person I obtained the knife from had an unsubstantiated theory that the knife might have belonged to  a member of a Marine unit. As I say only a theory!

 

with best wishes for 2019

 

Mark

[4thGordons]

4 hours ago, Michael Haselgrove said:

Mark,

  These knives are often unmarked and are most frequently found with nine grooves cut into the wooden grips on each side. 

 

Here are a couple of rather battered examples of the standard knife as described by Michael, one of which does have a maker's mark.

Chris

 

 

[Michael Haselgrove]

Hi Chris,

Both nice, original trench knives - thanks for sharing. 

The lower, unmarked one is made by Deutsche Maschinenfabrik A.G. Duisberg.  I have one in my collection which has an acceptance stamp and an almost invisible round stamp showing the maker mark which is Demag - Duisberg.  Check yours with a magnifying glass as it may be the same? 

The interesting thing about these knives is that they have the same cross-guard as the all steel, crank-handled knife bayonet made by the same firm, the only difference being that they didn't, at least for the knife in my collection, drill a small hole through the cross-guard to accommodate the clearing rod on the rifle.

Anyway, again, thanks for sharing.

Michael.

[trajan]

It is indeed a lovely piece! The treatment of the grips reminds me of the kS 98.

 

There is a general belief that this style of cross-hatching on leather grips - as with the kS 98 - was done to improve grip, but the style goes back to the 19th century, and I have a suspicion that they were originally meant not just to improve grip, but to imitate the snake-skin used on sword hilts. See, for example, the grips on Peabody-Martini yataghan bayonets - these have a rounded lower lower edge to each cross-hatched area as if imitating the scales on a snake-skin.