Original Item: Only One Available. German WWI Ersatz bayonets with their original 12" blades are very hard to find today. Many were officially shortened to 10" and sent to Turkey as aid during WWI, but this example escaped that fate. The classic work by J.ANTHONY CARTER, GERMAN BAYONETS, VOLUME THREE published in 1992 is the complete work covering all types of WWI Ersatz bayonets and cherished by bayonet collectors everywhere.

Anthony Carter's Reference EB48 appearing on Page 44-45 is the model we offer here. It has a Heavy Stamped steel two-piece hilt with a muzzle ring, with a 12" fullered blade. Only the cross guard has a marking and it appears to be the serial number 8826. The handle and crossguard were painted green at one point and great amounts are still visible. The scabbard was also painted green at one point and was retained nicely with some minor paint loss.

J. Anthony Carter died in 2001 but his four volume work is acknowledged as the supreme reference work on the subject, most especially the Ersatz Volume (No.3) which was his great passion throughout his lifetime.

A very nice Ersatz Bayonet Type EB48 in very good shape, complete with scabbard ready to add to your collection!

Approx. Specifications:
Blade Length: 12 1/4"
Blade Style: Single Edged with Fuller
Overall length: 17“
Crossguard: 3 1/2"
Scabbard Length: 13"

By 1916, the German authorities were in desperate need of large quantities of weapons with which to arm their troops. The country’s industries were beginning to feel the shortage of raw material and machine-time, and so the production of such non-essentials as service bayonets was severely curtailed.

The service weapons were complicated, and hence did not readily lend themselves to mass-production in small ill-equipped factories, so attempts were made to supplement the regular issue with simplified patterns which have come to be called Ersatz (German for substitute) bayonets.

There are, unfortunately, so many minor variations that it is impossible to acknowledge their existence. Most Ersatz bayonets have blades of 250mm(9.84in) or 300mm(11.81in) with hilts cast of iron or brass, and some have crossguards with ‘double muzzle rings’ (open at the top) which enabled them to fit the service rifles of 1871, 1884 and 1888.

Attempts were also made ro embed old socket bayonets in Ersatz hilts, particularly old Belgian and Austro-Hungarian blades, while extensive programmes of rehilting produced hybrids using the blades from old German regulation weapons and from such things as Vetterli sword and Gras epee bayonets. Alterations, usually affected by grinding away parts of the pommel and hilt and by reaming-out or bushing muzzle rings, were made to French Mle 66 and Mle 74 bayonets, and the result was a large supply of, serviceable, if obsolete, bayonets which could be issued to second line and home-garrison troops to release supplies of better weapons for the front.