Original Item: Only One Available. This is a lovely Matching Unit Marked Munich Metropolitan Police Long Dress "Walking Out" Bayonet by Alexander Coppel of Solingen. It comes complete with its original nickel fitted black leather scabbard, which is held in a lovely black leather frog.

The handle of the bayonet is lovely nickel plated brass alloy, featuring a very nice decorated "Birds Head" pommel without a bayonet slot, and an upswept cross guard decorated with oak leaves. The grip scales are made of beautiful stag horn with an aluminum police insignia firmly attached on one side. These are held with solid aluminum rivets and show no wiggle at all. Both cross guard and eagle’s head are in very good condition, with most of the original nickel plating still intact, showing wear and light oxidation where the plating has worn away on the ends of the pommel and guard.

As with most police bayonets, there is a unit marking on the reverse guard of the bayonet:

S.M.II.880

This indicates issue to the Munich Metropolitan Schutzpolizei (Protection Police), 2nd  district, Officer 880. The same unit marking is stamped onto the back of the scabbard, which we were not able to photograph due to the frog.

The bayonet has a lovely approximately 33 cm (13.125 inches) long nickel plated steel blade, which was forged "cut-down" style, with the fuller running to the tip. Blade is nice and bright, of excellent quality, and still has over 90% of the original nickel plating, with just a bit of wear through and oxidation speckling. There is definitely wear through from cleaning near the tip.

The blade ricasso is maker marked ALEXANDER COPPEL / SOLINGEN in arcs surrounding the firms trademark scales logo, with the firm's initials ACS interspersed. The same trademark scale logo, only larger, is present on the other side of the blade. This type of trademark was used on Police and other dress bayonets during the Weimar republic and up into the beginning of the NSDAP era, up until around 1940, per J. Anthony Carter's work GERMAN KNIFE AND SWORD MAKERS.

Alexander Coppel & Co. KG, Stahlwarenfabrik, was located in Solingen, the legendary German "City of Blades." The company was a major manufacturer of edged weapons and tools from the end of the 19th century up until the WWII period. Unfortunately, as NSDAP-control increased, brothers Carl Gustav and Dr. Alexander Coppel, the Jewish owners of the firm, were forced out. In 1936 the firm had been "Aryanized", and started using the name ALCOSO to hide the Jewish family name. By the end of 1936 the brothers were ejected from their Solingen offices, and by 1940 the brand trademark initials ACS were changed to AWS to reflect the change in ownership and name: Alexander Coppel Solingen to Alcoso-Werk Solingen. Carl Gustav Coppel committed suicide in Solingen in 1941, and Dr. Alexander Coppel was arrested in 1942 and sent to Theresienstadt Prison camp, where he died August 5th 1942.

The scabbard is made of fine black leather, fitted with heavily nickel plated brass alloy, and is in very good service-used condition. The leather does show age and finish loss, and is now quite stiff. The fittings show some minor plating loss and wear, but still present very nicely. The black patent leather frog is a solid field type, with good reinforcement rivets. The stitching looks to be all intact, however there is some degradation to the leather, with heavy wearing away of the finish on the front.

This is a wonderful unit-marked early war Stuttgart metropolitan police bayonet by ALCOSO with some great research potential! Complete with scabbard and frog, this bayonet is ready to research and display!

Specifications:
Blade Length: 13 1/8"
Blade Style: Single Edged with Fuller
Overall length: 17 1/2”
Crossguard: 2 1/4”
Scabbard Length: 14 3/8”