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Blank K98 Bayonet, with unit markings

jsz

Senior Member
I stumbled on this blank K98 bayonet. Typical blanko including scabbard, however it was marked at the tang. I was thinking post war...
 

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Nice bayonet ! Cannot tell from the photo, but is it one of the "narrow blade", unattributed S84/98s ? Also, does scabbard have the wide throat with retention springs or does it resemble the typical K98k scabbard pattern ? The bayonet/markings are not post-WW2, but pre-WW2. The "Bz." represents a Reichbahn district (in this case Breslau*). The second marking is a bit unusual as it bears a large case "A" before the specific weapon issue number "22". In all likelihood the bayonet was once mated with a "D.R." marked 1933/34 Mauser "Banner" rifle bearing the same marking on the stock. Such bayonets are desirable variants for some collectors (I among them).

*The German S84/98 Bayonet Volume 1 1908-1933 by Bruce Kareem/2004 page 111
 
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From RBD are mentioned a 15.District as Koeln, A could be a part of District area. Bz means probably a Bahnschutz in reality. Bezirk as Bz is for me little problematic as in german "small area of a city".b.r.Andy
PS. in Volume I of book Karabiner K98k of Bruce Karem and Mike Steves (pages 522/523) is mentioned a Bz.15 .C.17 and a Bz.15 .237 what means minimum 4 areas described by no add. letter and large letters A-C.
PS2. to F. i dont have the book mentioned above but the deciphering as Breslau district is probably not correct, look at RBD number assigned, and in the Volume I is mentioned on page 522 SBR was previously wrongly declared as Breslau, anyway i added already it in correction of Your blanko article, germans did deciphere this marking already.
Other point for this opinion is the majority of Bz.15 and SBR samples where found by US Gis or on west area, so i assume this must be locations in west of Germany, which correspond with the areas that i mentioned before.
 
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SBR desination

Andy at the time of writing I still did not know what the "SBR" desination meant.

In the time after Volume I was written we had additional resources available in Germany, Stephan Hansen being a key contributor.

I had queried him this past year and here are his thoughts:

I agree with you, SBR is incorrectly associated with Berlin Police. I have an idea and in my opinion some arguments speak for it:
The marking certainly means Reichsbahndirektion Saarbrücken.

After the World War I, in the year 1920, as a result of the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, the Saar area and with it the city of Saarbrücken was placed under the administration of the League of Nations. In April 1920, the German Direktion of the Saar area Railway was relocated to Trier and renamed as Stammeisenbahndirektion Saarbrücken in Trier. In March 1921 it was renamed to Eisenbahndirection des Saargebietes and as example all the locomotives were named SAAR.
In a referendum on January 13, 1935, the majority of the population of the Saar decided to re-affiliate to the Deutsche Reich. Then they merged the Eisenbahndirection des Saargebietes with Reichsbahndirektion Trier to Reichsbahndirektion Saarbrücken based in Saarbrücken. As example the abbreviation SAAR on the locomotives got changed back to SBR.
 
Yes SBR was mentioned by german collectors as Saarbruecken. Evidently there is not uniform marking by RBD, some are number designated like 15 and 29, some by shortages as KS for Kassel and Wt for Wuppertal. b.r.Andy
 
Additional photos of the bayonet in this discussion.
 

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It is at least as nice as the other bayonet was you posted. I go to the Allentown Show and I haven’t seen as nice pieces as you have just shown.
 

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