Best Bayonet Books?

[armourer]

But he forgot to mention that they were around by the thousands from the seventies on. & available without scabbards for £1 each. Just to 'move them on'!

Back in about 1972-3, I sent off to a well known British arms ansd militaria dealer, who is still going strong!, for one of his catalogues. The catalogue, with postage, cost 30p, and came with a free No.4 Mk.3 spike bayonet, with scabbard!

[old-smithy]

Bill

I agree with you about the Keislings, when i first started collecting this was about the best out there as the Bayonet book was way too expensive for a novice like me. It makes unknowns so much easier to ID. the comments that there are variations in lenght, never wear to me as i always looked back and forward several pages to see if there were other variations etc. Its great to have books by country but if you have blades with no marks - like a lot of South American ones - or German marks that means it coudl come from anywhere the length is a great starting point.

[old-smithy]

the ABC series has many problems not least of which is its in French, however it is one of th emost expansive books in terms of the shear numbers and variety. all nicely sorted by length so easy to find stuff. Vol III is a complete waste unless you do French stuff, most of it is minor variatiosn of 1866, 1886 etc. that for other countries woudl have been coverd by 1 or entries not 20 or 30.

My site has a bibliography with my comments on every bayoent book I have (>300) and hopefully a fairly objective comment on the books. Soem peopel may not liek what i have said about some books, but if you promise the moon and miss that isnt my fault.

[James.Bolton]

Already mentioned is Ian D Skennerton & Robert Richardson's - British & Commonwealth Bayonets; which I would also recommend as being excellent.

In addition an invaluable aid to bayonet identification and general bayonet knowledge is 'Bob Osborn's Guide to Bayonets of the World' which is an e-book on CD. Loads of colour pictures, marking info, interactive identification guide etc. Can be bought on e-bay I think (about £14 if I remember correctly) or at WBD Publications - creating and publishing electronic books. Well worth the money for the hundreds of times I must have used it to refer to.

[armourer]

As a socket bayonet collector I have gotten quite interested in the humble No.4 spike bayonet lately, of which I have a few. So I recently purchased a copy of Graham Priests 'Spirit of the Pike'. WOW!!! what a book, how on earth he found so much information on this humble bayonet is well beyond me!
It is a fantastic book. If you are in anyway interested in these often encountered bayonets, then this book is a must! It is well worth every penny, cent, shilling......