Original Item: Only One Available. This is a lovely and rare Metropolitan Police Short Dress "Walking Out" Bayonet by "Siegfried" E. Pack & Söhne Solingen. As with other dress bayonets, choice of blade length was left to the purchaser, either the nickel-plated short (25cm) or long (33cm) version, however police bayonets are almost always the "long" version, with a "cut down" style blade. The short dress bayonets are extremely rare, and this example comes complete with its original black enamel finished scabbard, black patent leather belt frog, and a police NCO troddel knot.

The handle of the bayonet is lovely lightweight antiqued aluminum alloy, featuring a lovely 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 alloy police insignia firmly attached on one side. These are held with plated steel rivets, which have lost their plating and oxidized. Both cross guard and eagle’s head are in very good condition, with most of the antiquing still present, and show no major wear or damage.

The bayonet has a lovely approximately 25 cm (9.75 inches) long nickel plated steel blade, forged in the standard style that a "long" Heer Army dress bayonet would be, with a single edge and fuller. Blade is nice and bright, of excellent quality, and still has over 95% of the original nickel plating, with just a bit of wear at the end of the fuller near the tip from the scabbard runners.

The ricasso of the blade is marked with the "Siegfried" trademark logo of Ernst Pack & Söhne, which is in excellent condition. The mark shows their trademark "Young Siegfried wielding a hammer". The whole trademark reads:

Siegfried
WAFFEN
E. PACK
& SÖHNE
SOLINGEN

Per J. Anthony Carter's book GERMAN KNIFE AND SWORD MAKERS, this firm used this trademark on Army Officer swords as well as daggers and bayonets before the war and during the early years. They mostly made daggers so there is not as much information regarding the swords. The company survived the war, until it was sold in the 1960s to another knife company from Solingen, and the maker mark continued to be used into the 1990s.

The scabbard on this example is the standard black enamel steel often seen on these dress bayonets, which retains the original finish at about 80%. We can see the texture of the steel through the finish, and it has checked and crazed throughout, with some finish loss on the reverse from wear. Fitted around the scabbard is a black patent leather belt frog without rivets, which has degraded over the years, and is now in delicate condition. The finish has "melted" and the leather also shows degradation. There looks to be a piece of fabric glued to the back to help stabilize it.

Wrapped around the frog is a service used condition police NCO troddel knot, with a leather strap with three lines of silver metal thread, with the center one having a red thread in the middle. The end knot is silver bullion, with a tri color insert in the end. The bullion has pulled out on a lot of the leather strap due to age, and is now hanging loose on the leather.

This is a wonderful early war rare short metropolitan police bayonet by E. Pack & Söhne, complete with scabbard, frog, and portepee. This is the full setup!

Specifications:
Blade Length: 9 3/4"
Blade Style: Single Edged with Fuller
Overall length: 14 1/4”
Crossguard: 2”
Scabbard Length: 11 7/8”