SA Dagger..

[Danny70]

Hi All...

I'm looking for your comments / opinions on my latest addition (and the reason I had all those EK's for sale!)... An early Emil Voos SA. I should have been more careful before buying, but I just love these daggers and could not resist it at the price it sold at.

It's a definite step up from my first dagger, but still it has it's problems, the most immediately obvious being the missing suspension ring.

For some reason, the blade looks slightly off-centre in these photographs, but it must be the angle they were taken at, because viewed in hand, it looks fine.

The scabbard is in good condition retaining most of it's brown finish (again, a few minor marks and one dent on the reverse (has to be held to the light to see this). The tip does have gouges and scratches on the reverse and the ball is slightly flatened. It's a good tight and solid fit to the dagger with no movement when in place.

[Danny70]

The pommel nut shows signs of tampering with what look like pliers marks corresponding to curved scratches on the adjacent crossguard.

The grip itself has wear in the form of minor dents and scratches and also two small chips at the top crossguard. The are also signs of a small crack behind the SA roundel which appears on the reverse in the same position. (perhaps the pommel nut was over-tightened at some stage?)

The eagle looks to have the same patina (and green gunk!) as found on the crossguards.

The lower crossguard is stamped with the Gau mark Nm (Nordmark) and the blade sits perfectly flush with it.

[Danny70]

The blade has a problem that I hope can be repaired to some extent. It looks to have been buffed / polished as very little evidence of cross-grain remains. There is no evidence (to my eye at least) of sharpening and the tip is almost needle sharp.

HOWEVER...

Some complete idiot decided at some stage to re-blacken the inscription. It is so poorly done that I could imagine that it was a child. This is what makes the inscription so 'blurry' in the picture above. It looks like some kind of chemical blackening was used - it doesn't look like a paint anyway. When viewed at an angle the sharp features of the original etching are visible with the added over-spill of the blackener. This is rather difficult to photograph but the last picture probably shows it best.

Does anyone know of a way of removing this additional blackening without doing any other damage?

So, does anyone see any major problems with this dagger that I have missed? All comments, opinions or help are gratefully received, be they good news or bad!

Regards - Danny

[mametz]

Danny used to seeing your nice ek2 collection, but daggers are a world of it,s own

dagger people are very fussy, any flaws are writ large and tend to put collectors

off. Better to have one good example than many with problems, i bought a Haco

Sa a while back cracking dagger good scabbard, nice nickle fittings, blonde grip.

But it had lost a bit off the blade tip, thought i would make some money on it

had a hard time selling it though, struggled to get my money back in the end.

It looks like you got the bug now! but don,t jump in stand back take your time

nice ones are about but try and buy the best.

Regards

Mametz

[Danny70]

Mametz,

Thanks for the reply and sound advice!

I know you are correct, but to be honest, this dagger was priced right for me and I wasn't buying it to sell on. I'm not a 'dagger guy' and this was purely to satisfy a desire to have a 'decent-ish' SA in my collection.

I previously got a cheap one that was in a terrible state and tried to replace the blade, but the replacement didn't fit. I ended up buying another grip, set of crossguards and a pommel nut for the spare blade!

As a result, I now have 3 daggers (one without scabbard) and have them in an antique display case which I am very happy with... so that's it, I have no intention nor wish to get another. I'm satisfied with what I have here. (Ok, I admit it, I've since replaced the missing suspension ring and added a hanger.. but that's definitely it now, no more!)

Thanks again.

Regards - Danny

[vestae]

Hello All,

nice dagger, maybe the sa eagle has been restored in the past...

sebastien.