A Good, Early Marked & Dated 1942, Luftwaffe Combat Knife WWII Luftwaffen-Kampfmesser or Stiefelmesser a Close-Quarter Fighting Knife Issued to German Aircrews, From The Former Gordon Hughes Collection

Acquired originally by our friend and colleague, Gordon Highes, during his motorbike travels in Germany in the 1950's. He then sold it to our other friend and colleague of 30 years, Christopher Fox, another serious and famous collector of Japanese swords, and knives and bayonets from Germany, in the 80's. Gordon Hughes, was a world leading expert on German knives and bayonets, and world famous author of the seminal work 'German Military Fighting Knives, 1914-45', 'A Primer of German Military Knives of the Two World Wars', and 'A Primer on World Bayonets' by John Walter and Gordon Hughes. Gordon was an extraordinarily popular figure in the German knife collecting sphere, who just after the war would travel around Germany, acquiring knives and bayonets, mostly from the widows of fallen German soldiers, visiting all the old famous cities containing the infamous buildings of the Reich, such as in Nuremburg and the bombed out remains of the Eagles Nest, where managed to prize out a tile from the remains of Hitler's kitchens. We then, recently acquired it from the Christopher Fox Collection.

Typically features a straight, single or double-edged steel blade, with an overall length of about 27.5 cm (11 inches) in scabbard.

Constructed with a full-tang design fitted with smooth wooden grip plates secured by three steel rivets

Scabbard made of bent sheet metal, finished originally with a factory black finish surface, usually painted or occassionaly blued, and often equipped with a heavy-duty steel spring clip on the back, or, sometimes with a leather belt frog strap with single rivet and twin stitches, depending on how it was planned to be worn by the user. The belt frog strap was an adaption for combatants that wanted a belt attachment for safer mobility, the boot spring mount could be dislodged easily.

The integrated metal clip allowed the user to securely slide and anchor the sheath inside a high-length boot or attach it directly to a tunic.
Early “kampfmesser” were maker marked on their blade ricasso’s, while later issues were often left unmarked.

Blade code marked very nicely with 'hat 1942', Made by Gebr. Gafrath Solingen-Widdert. *Please note, as detailed by Gordon Hughes, it bears the wartime stamp of 'hat 42' with the incomplete digit of the numeral 4, where the upper strokes of the 4 do not meet at the top, {the post war version has the incorrect complete digit 4} and, the wartime wide '9' digit, not the post war narrow '9' digit.

Blade nice and bright with light surface pitting traces overall.

Many original authentication features of German knives from Imperial Germany and WW2 were detailed to us by Gordon Hughes, during his weekly visits to us {from his Brighton home} every week for over 35 years. He, alongside Chris Fox, were our authenticators on all German weaponry from the 20th century.

An an aside what very few of Gordon's fiends didnt know about him, was, that during his summer travels in Almeira in Southern Spain, in the late 1960's, he was hired by the famous Italian movie director Sergio Leone {for some holiday cash!} as a translator for The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly starring Clint Eastwood

Code: 26348