Matching serials of rifles and bayonets

Upon reading Law’s BotW, on page 317, dealing with the Japanese contract of 1937, for 20,000 K98’s, he quotes “specifications” ver batum . . . .

“Art 43: Final Testing of the Bayonets. After testing, the bayonets will be mounted onto the corresponding rifles and after they have been numbered, they will be packed together with the rifles of the same number,”

My question is . . . .
Was the German government/ordnance, at this early date, as “arcane” as the Japanese were as to issueing the rifle and bayonet with the same serial?

I have a friend who was in the Russian army in the 1980’s, and he tells me he had a “matching number bayonet for his AK.”

What say ye?

He may be talking about some of the foreign contract rifles. K98k rifles for the german army were not issued with matching serial number bayonets.

... don't think the Japanese theory is correct... just sayin'

Agreed, commercial contracts were conducted according to the requirements of the customer. It was common for such contracts to require matched bayonets, South America comes to mind also.

One should also remember that when speaking of German military bayonets, they were not serialed at all until the Sg84/98 III was introduced, all prior models (that I am aware of) Sg98, Sg98/05, Sg84/98 I & II etc... were not serialed at all. Neither were the republican era WuK (WKC) bayonets. Though in all models examples exist that were serialed at the unit level, though rarely and not manufactured that way.

Bigdibbs88 said:

He may be talking about some of the foreign contract rifles. K98k rifles for the german army were not issued with matching serial number bayonets.

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