![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Odd thing is the serial number on the crossguard. Note how the 'muzzle rest' has a number '1' there, as is sometimes found on all kinds of 98/05's, and which is some form of control marking - the press-stud is rusted on this one and so I can't see if there is a marking there.The screws, etc., don't seem to be fraktur-marked, and I need to check if these are present on any other W/fabrik ones - I can't recall any, but some makers were using fraktur-marked screws and press-studs into 1917 and (I think) 1918. Not the best of conditions, and a non-German frog (any ideas?), but a rareish 1915 one. I'll post up some of my examples when time and kids permit, but in the meantime, I'll be happy to see what others have!Īnd this is what turned up today. As for costing, well the final bill to the Prussian War Ministry for the total 1,105,962 was 11,699,609.90 marks, and so the average unit cost (I assume with scabbards) was around 10.50 RM. All of these bayonets presumably came with the standard Oberndorf-made metal scabbard, which have on the reverse a smaller version of the maker’s stamp as found on the bayonet’s ricassoes. This number for 1917 indicates a production rate of 1,700-1,900 per day per 6-day week… By November 1918, Mauser had produced a total of 1,105,962 98/05’s, with 238,962 being made in 1918, and about 66,357 of that grand total, being saw-backs. As it is, the documents available for Fichtel & Sachs in Schweinfurt, who began the production of the 98/05 in May 1915, reveal how tooling up for the production of something new resulted in their case to as few as 20 bayonets a day being completed in their first year of production…īack in Oberndorf, things started to get going with 373,100 being made by the end of 1916, and another 493,900 being produced in 1917, of which 116,000 were dispatched to the Ottoman Empire. Evidently Mauser were rather slow in the required tooling up process, and so actual production might not have started until towards the end of 1915. However, the records show that the Prussian War Ministry did not receive any Mauser 98/05’s until May 1916, when 6,090 were delivered. All of the earliest known examples, i.e., with (19)15 inspection stamps, are 98/05 n.A., and so fitted with the flash guard introduced on the 13th July 1915 for all newly manufactured 98/05’s. Waffenfabrik bayonet has ever been reported. This is shown by the way that no 98/05 a.A. Apparently this order was directed at Mauser, DWM, and the Suhl consortium, with Mauser and DWM to produce 800,000 each, and another 400,000 contracted to the Suhl consortium (basically the Schilling, Haenel, and Sauer and Sohn concerns), so making two million 98/05’s in all.Īs it is, DWM did not make any bayonets, while Mauser at Oberndorf did not start producing these 98/05’s until after 13th July 1915. So, for starters, as I understand it, as early as 11th December 1914, the Prussian War Ministry was already demanding an increase in the production of 98/05’s, which had become the bayonet of choice among those at the front. So I thought I’d start a thread exclusively to share information about them, the information here coming from Stortz. Thanks to a section on bayonets in Dieter Stortz’ excellent book on the Gew.98, plus a few other sources, I am now beginning to get to know these ones better. I love Waffenfabrik Mauser 98/05 bayonets… Well, in a way I have to as they are the most common ones to be found here in Turkey and Syria - thanks to the decision of the German War Ministry to send some 116,000+ of these ‘Butcher blades’ to Turkey, most of these arriving in 1917… ![]()
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