Enfield number 5 Mk 1 Bayonet help

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I think e-bay is the main culprit in driving up prices. Seems a bit a bit of a double edge bayonet (if you will allow a pun). Easy access to a world wide market for objects that in the not to distant past you had to devote some effort to find. The Arisaka,k98,Garand etc.. bayonets are all climbing in price as well. I for one will not pay close to or above rifle prices for a bayonet even though I concider some of my rifles incomplete without them. Perhaps perseverance will pay off in my search for those I am missing.

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[Aragorn243]

I think e-bay is the main culprit in driving up prices.

It is a distinct possibility although in other areas, I've found ebay to lower prices on some items. Books for example. I can generally with patience get books for significantly less on ebay than anywhere else other than a yard sale. Most antique dealers I've talked with despise ebay although they have begun to embrace it for use themselves. Ebay was again driving the prices lower than they were selling in their little shops. More people are able to get rid of things they may otherwise just let sit.

I have bought a few bayonets off ebay, nothing fancy but I have noticed that the better ones seem to sell extremely well. More than I'm interested in paying and I doubt that there are that many rifle collectors trying to get some of those more obscure types.

The Jungle Carbine may simply be the perfect storm. It is a very popular rifle to begin with, so much so that they made reproductions of it out of perfectly serviceable No 4's. The rifle just has "the look" that guys seem to want. The bayonet has "the look" as well and again, highly reproduced for that reason. Add to it that the bayonets were kept in service on another rifle after the No 5 was removed from service and that some were also converted to another type handle and the numbers have been both reduced and separated from the original rifle. Now the final piece being the decision by the British government to destroy stocks on hand rather than sell them and all those thousands of bayonets used for the secondary rifle are gone for good.