Unusual No4 Pig Sticker Scabbard

I have this No4 scabbard which seems unusual in that the frog button and ball end are polished steel. The body is a gloss black paint finish. It came with a standard issue Long Branch No4 MK2 bayonet. I personally removed the Cosmoline from it and so I believe this polishing was done by a military organisation rather than a collector/re-enactor after disposal. Has any-one seen this before perhaps for use with ceremonial bayonets? Could it be of Canadian origin and perhaps they did the polishing. Thanks for any information.

Done by a) someone with a bit too much time on his hands or b) someone who needs to get out a bit more.

It did come in Cosmoline plus a storage wrapping which I took to be military.

I think if you strip the black paint off you'll find it's completely chromed. Then they painted it black. The guys from Queen's Own Rifles of Canada that I used to serve with told me they had bayonets for dress that had been done like this, same as we did FN bayonets. I had a full chrome one, others here have shown them. I think you'll find that's what you have...

Jim, do you think it would have ever been worn in it's completely chrome form, assuming that's what it is, or was that just the way that the button and ball was chromed? Simpler to just chrome the whole lot and paint black the part that you don't want shiny?

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Originally Posted by Flying10uk

do you think it would have ever been worn in it's completely chrome form

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Yes, that's the way I was told they were used.

Like the Iraqi Palace guard chrome No1 rifles and the Royal Hong Kong Regt - ceremonial chrome No4's.

I've seen gold plated AKs too...we had a chrome plated FN C1 A1 in our unit(skill at arms trophy). It had been done without any authorization back in the old days, when the RQ found out, he about flipped. It had simply been taken from stores and done so it was still held by the stores as serviceable. I think it's in Regt Museum now...a monument to stupidity I should think...

I have also got a standard K98 bayonet and scabbard but the scabbard is Nickel or Chrome plated. I think that it is Nickel but am not 100% certain. When I saw it for sale the scabbard had the appearance of tarnished aluminium and I assumed that the Germans must have produced some aluminium scabbards for some funny reason; I purchased it. When I got it home and started to clean it up I realised that it was in fact just a standard steel scabbard which had been plated. I did ask someone who I was told "knew all about German military stuff" who said that it was either a ceremonial or presentation piece. The odd thing is that the bayonet it's self is just the standard blued affair but, if memory serves me correctly, the serial numbers match.

I will see about posting pictures later.

1st BN PPCLI still has a set of chromed Nella C7 Bayonets with hand made hardwood scales for parading The Colours with, I imagine those will show up somewhere in the future to confound collectors such as the above described items do.

As seen here, Colour Party, center man at the present arms:

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...liparade-1.jpg

Here is my K98 bayonet which I previously mentioned. I purchased this item some years back from a chap who told me that he had purchased it from the son of a British soldier who brought it back at the end of WW2 and that is all I know of it's history. Please feel free to comment on any thoughts which you may have on the reasons for the scabbard being bright plated and which branch of the German armed forces may have used it as such. It came with the leather frog and all that I have done is to clean up the metalwork plus clean/treat the leather.

No much I can say aside from commenting the scabbard had accumulated a lot of knocks and dings for something that at least appears to be a parade finished item.

It was pretty mucky when I got it and I don't think that it had been taken care of for a very long time. It probably spent many years in a box of junk in someone's garden shed until I "rescued" it.

Wikipedia page for Waffenampts does return this:

WaA253 S/175 Carl Eickhorn Baj. Solingen 1936-37

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This page has a section on Dress and Ersatz bayonets that does quote references, perhaps it could be useful to you:

http://www.gotavapen.se/gota/artikla...8bayonets4.htm

By their definition, a proper dress bayonet could not be mounted to an actual rifle due to the track for the lug being made undersized. So perhaps you have a proper fighting bayonet that someone has decided to polish the scabbard?

What is definately very refreshing to see in Sentyrduties photo (thread 10) is the fact that the blokes are wearing their berets properly. Cap badge over the centre of the left eye and not over the left ear which you see nowadays - like some peasant farmer in France! A gap between the beret band and the eyes (except Lt or Capt with sword on right end of photo), slack material pulled back and down. Very smart.

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

except Lt or Capt with sword on right end of photo

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He's a Lt. Peter, the Junior Subalturn carries the Regt Color. Senior Sub carries the Queen's...

Looking a bit more carefully BAR, do the WO 2's, 1's and CQMS's still use the Crown, Coat of Arms and crown/laurel wreath badges we can sort of see?

I used to have a view that there was indeed a time and place for what we called 'shxx order' dress. In the workshop, extreme hot weather, on the ranges and at training/exercise. But in camp generally, it took very little extra effort to look smart and businesslike. Just my view

Yes, the Cheif W.O (RSM)(W1)wore the coat of arms, the Master W.O. seen here(CSM)(W2) wore the crown and laurel and the W.O wore a crown. All down on the sleeve so when you approached UK troops you'd get a salute, and then after compliments had finished, you'd find yourself explaining to the Lance that had just jacked his troops that you were in fact a Staff Sgt...equivalent...

Off at a tangent again...., so look away now!
Yep, I used to get fooled very often as a Capt BAR! I'd occasionally salute 'Major' out on the field firing ranges after seeing the black epaulette crown buttoned onto his button-up jacket front - only for him to tell me quietly that while he and his blokes appreciated this promotion, he was a WO2! The trouble, and constant grumble for junior Offrs was that a Major and WO2 were both in very similar age brackets so difficult to tell apart while dressed in '....craps' (crap order). Nothing to get too hot under the collar about I'd always say!

Yup, been there...you should have seen what happened when we put our chevrons on our shoulder epaulets back in the '80's...what a joke. Nothing to get hot about, nope.