German Militaria Blog: Luftwaffe Daggers $5.95 Each

The advertisement on this page was run widely in the mid-1950s in American magazines like Popular Science and American Rifleman, and a great many daggers were sold. I know, because I bought one for $5.95. During the same period, Robert Abels in New York was selling a nearly complete line of Nazi daggers with the correct sheaths at a price of from $10.00 to $20.00. Abels had no trouble getting all the German militaria that he could sell.

Major Jim Atwood was apparently the first of the present group of “collectors/authorities” to visit Solingen in search of World War II "warehouse finds" and he didn’t even get there untill
1960! ln fact he was a late arrival, and a good deal of the best merchandise was long gone at very low prices.

It is still possible to have any quantity of grips, blades or entire daggers made to order in Solingen. The difference is that it is no longer practical. when Atwood was there in the 1960s one US dollar would buy something over four Deutsche Marks. As this is being written (1993) a dollar will only buy slightly more than one Deutsche Mark! ln other words, it is extremely expensive at the moment to have daggers made in Solingen. It is far cheaper to have them made in Spain, India, Pakistan or some other "emerging" nation.

At the bottom of this page and on the two following pages we have reproduced a small portion of a 175-page Robert Abels catalog from 1949. As you can plainly see, he was very much in the Nazi relics business less than five years after the war ended. Sellers like Abels would not consider stocking and cataloging material that they couldn't double their money on. Therefore, it is perfectly safe to assume that he was paying less than $9.00 to have a SA dagger made for him in Solingen, and delivered to him in New York, freight and duty paid.

From this Robert Abels catalog I purchased a quantity of the #1509 NSKK metal hat badge, shown below, at a price of two for a dollar. At the time I bought them I had no reason to question their vintage. With knowledge I gained since I bought these badges from Abels, I have concluded that it is most likely that this material was made after World War II specifically to fill orders for the American and British markets.