As I am sure you know from Imperial German Historys great blogs, Germany was unified under one Kaiser, but not as such a unified country, there were four kingdoms and a plethora of smaller fiefdoms. They came into the German unification with different military traditions, different uniforms, gear and weapons, and though that got more standardized with time, there were still differences through WWI, and even when they used the same weapons, they still marked their ownership of them.
A standard question in collectors groups is “What do the stamps on this bayonet mean?”. An understandable question, bayonet markings are a science in itself, and there are so many of them. However, if you can read them they can tell you a lot about the history of the item. And, to my great chagrin, almost everyone who asks that question forget to look at, and to photograph, the spine of the blade near the handle, where there are two pieces of crucial information. Understandable, but slightly vexing.
The following is just a sample of the spine stamps one can find. These are from my own collection, and I never had an ambition to collect all the kings, so some notable ones are missing, but at least they should be sufficient to show what some small stamps can tell you.
Now, the main rule is: On the blade spine you find a crown over a letter (sometimes two letters) which is the kings monogram. Then below that is a two digit number showing the year it was manufactured, or more precisely the year of acceptance when the military inspector deemed it within the specifications. Below that again is an inspectors stamp, crown over gothic letter, and as there are no comprehensive lists of specific inspectors those only tell us that they were inspected and accepted.
So, those stamps tell us what state the weapons were owned by, and do determine rarity as the Prussian army was by far the largest, followed by the Bavarian, then the Saxon and the minuscule Württemberg army.
So, here are some, from my collection:
Prussian king and German Kaiser Wilhelm I (picture 1), his Royal Cypher is the same as on the bayonets of Wilhelm II (picture 2) so you need to look at the year to determine which one it is. In this case the M1871 bayonet was made in 1876 while Wilhelm I still ruled, after his death in 1888 the Cypher is for Wilhelm II, as on the somewhat rare 1917 dated German issue M95 bayonet shown. Between the two Kings and Kaisers. Friedrich III ruled for 99 days in 1888 between the Wilhelms, but his Cypher, Crown over F was probably never used, I have never seen one at least.
As for the Bavarian ones, the first one here (Picture 3) was an enigma to me. It has crown over L, and the year 88 for 1888. The bayonet, an SG71/84, has Bavarian unit marks, and I am now convinced that some inspector must have continued to use the stamp of Ludwig II even though he died in 1886 and was succeeded by Otto. I see no other explanation. The next one (picture 4) is the proper stamp of king Otto on a 1903 dated S98 bayonet. However, Otto was mentally ill and never really ruled. In 1913 Ludwig III had him deposed and took over, thus becoming the last king of Bavaria. His Royal cypher is a gothic L (Picture 5) on an S98/05 bayonet from 1917.
Saxony, Here is an S98 bayonet with the Royal Cypher of Friedrich August III (picture 6), who ruled from 1904 to 1918.
I don’t have any Württemberg bayonets, they are rare, and as I said I never tried to collect all the kings. However Wilhelm II, not the same as the Kaiser Wilhelm II, had a royal cypher that was a crown over gothic W, and his predecessor Karl had a crown over gothic K.
Sometimes there is no royal cypher at all, but just an asterisk. That is not some anonymous king, it just shows that the weapon was out of specifications, so not accepted by the inspector, and will have been reworked. Other bayonets, like the Ersatz and S84/98 second pattern were not stamped with royal cyphers, but only with the inspectors stamps. Who said the Germans were systematic?
So, now you have been on a long trip through the very nerdy world of some very few of the stamps on German imperial bayonets. Hope you enjoyed the ride.