Lester,

I would have agreed with you prior to checking Old Smithys website. I went there to check his fakes to compare it and mine wasn't even close to any of them. Went back a second time after I posted the first post here and looked at his real ones. The second bayonet he has shown is what I have. He has four photos of it, the markings match exactly and while his looks brand new, mine has some paint on it is spots.

It says there and I quote from his page:

"No4 MkI reworked and renumber with Arabic rather than Roman numerals. This shows it to be a50's rework of an obsolete bayonet. This is reported in Graham Priests Spirit of the Pike, and is one of only 7 known at the moment. The original marks have been ground off and new ones added."

My bayonet is not short, it is full length and could not have been made from a MKII, the tip is shaped correctly, it is not narrow. The quality of the grooves is good, and it has the dimple on the elbow which is only present in a cruciform because of the way they were made. I learned all this last evening trying to verify it or confirm it as fake.

Now that doesn't mean this can't still be a fake, I'm hoping Old Smithy will weigh in on this as he has the source material to verify it.

I understand the odds of me walking into a US flea market and picking up a Britishicon Bayonet which only has 7 known examples for $65 is INCREDIBLY high. It did however come in an unissued, unmarked scabbard with an unissued canvas frog dated 1955 which would fit for a 50's rework.

So at this point, this has to be an original reworked singer bayonet remarked in 1955 or it is an extremely well made reproduction of a little known bayonet that hits all the check points for being legit.. Odds are pretty low for either one but as Sherlock Holmes once said:

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"

I believe I have comfortably removed that this bayonet was made from a No4 MKII. It is only speculation on my part that someone making a reproduction would have reproduced the known examples rather than one with markings only a few would recognize. I don't known when the book "Spirit of the Pike" was written or if several thousand of these turned up after its printing when they started selling them surplus. But then again, if it is a rarer example, the faker could perhaps get more out of it, justifying the extra work involved to make it "correct".