Wire Cutters, genuine or repro???

[Flying10uk]

I recently purchased these wire cutters from a U.K. based dealer who sold them to me as genuine issue, post WW2, British wire cutters. When they arrived and I had a good look at them I can't help but think that they have the look of being reproduction and not original items, as described. There are no visible markings which I can see but any that may have been present may have been lost if it's an original that's been refinished. All the parts do appear to have been punched out with hard tooling and not laser cut as is often seen with reproduction items these days. It has obviously been painted recently but this doesn't necessarily indicate a repro and it could be an original that's been refinished.

I have contacted the dealer who sold it to me and he still insists that it's a genuine item. I was wondering if Forum members would like to take a look at the pictures, please, and help me figure out if it's an original item or a repro because at the moment I can't decide one way or the other.

Generally I don't have reproduction items in my collection for the simple reason that they do nothing for me. The only exception to this is something like a part that is no-longer available and a repro is the only option. Thanks for any information and help.

Information

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[Aragorn243]

I would say they are original wire cutters. Whether they are British military or not might be in question. But I don't know when or if they stopped marking their items.

There is no money in reproduction wire cutters as the real ones are dirt cheap and plentiful.

[Peter Laidler]

While talking of wire cutters. The wire cutting feature of the current bayonet/scabbard was one of those things decided on by a committee who really couldn't make their minds up. For various reasons it added thousands upon thousands of £££'s to the bayonet concept. It causes never ending scrap damage to blades and scabbards. One of my old bosses said that it would have been a far better idea and a zillion times cheaper to simply give 2 men in the Infantry section a pair of decent and more versatile pliers. Or as in this case, a simple pair of cutters. I'm also bound to wonder what sort of dire straits you'd need to be in to even contemplate using the saw blade attached to the scabbard.......

[browningautorifle]

the saw blade attached to the scabbard.

For fish scaling...

We too have a wire cutter attached but I know there's some concertina that would defeat it. The blades would be stronger without a hole in them...

[Peter Laidler]

And it's the metallurgy of that last 1" of the blade too. It's a difficult mix of hardness and toughness and a bit of flexibility too and........

[Sentryduty]

During my time the hook bill wire cutters were still section equipment, no one I knew took the bayonet wire cutter seriously.

In fact when the Bayonet 2000 can on issue there was no fanfare, instruction, or manual. It was simply go to CQ and trade in your old pokey thing (Nella) for the new pokey thing (Bayonet 2000).