No9 bayonet M/49

[telperion]

Hi there,

last week I stumbled across this socket bayonet. As it was supposed to be from M/49, I really wanted to have it. Examining it at home, I found this "M" mark, and my first thought was: what would the "Maltby-M" do here?? This "M" reminded me very much of the Maltby-M as a Maltby-made No 4 was the first gun I owned. Then I did some further research and discovered, that Peter Laidler brought up the question some years ago, if those M/48, M/49 and M/50 marked bayos were really from some little metal working shops or from ROF Maltby in 1948 - 1950. I don't know what the community says know, so I wanted to share my new find with you all and learn something about its history.
Bayo didn't see much service for sure and was refurbished at some time.




Many greetings

T

Information

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[Aragorn243]

May not have seen any service. A lot of these have been sold recently still in the paper. This was probably one of them.

[telperion]

Ah, I see. Not many around here, if any.

What about the Maltby connection??

thanx

T

[Aragorn243]

In the US they were all over the place about 5-10 years ago, pretty common. Not sure the M stands for Maltby. They used M prefixes on a lot of wartime bayonets. for different manufacturers. I was not able to find any or yours however. The primary makers were ROF Poole and RSAF Enfield. Three private makers also produced small quantities. This might explain your three numbers.

[CINDERS]

According to Skennertons Broad Arrow MkII the designation M-49 is Francis & Barness Ltd Coventry.

[telperion]

Yes, this is what I found out, too.

I am referring to questions Peter Laidler brought up ca. 5 years ago in this forum:
-why would the government choose 3 makers who had never had anything to do with the bayo business?
-why would they use wartime codes when the war was over for some years?
-that they have the (consecutive code) numbers 48, 49 and 50 is remarkable, but may be incidential. Hey suggests that those could also be manufactoring years.
-ROF Maltby was struggling for work back then

Quite convincing, if you ask me, although nobody knows, of course.

And then I found this "M", that on the lateral flat side of the bayo, which is very very much like the "M" on Maltby guns.

If there's somebody out there with one of those bayos, maybe he could have a look and report back here.

greetings

T

[Flying10uk]

I do not believe that the M 49 on these No9 bayonets is a dispersal code but I do believe that the "49" part denotes the year of manufacture. I came to this conclusion some time ago because of how the Poole manufactured No9 bayonets are marked, with a "P" followed by a number. Fortunately there were no dispersal codes starting with a "P" otherwise people would probably be saying that all the Poole made No9 bayonets had a dispersal code on them as well. I do not know that the "M" part of the marking denotes "Maltby" but I do believe that it is reasonable to assume that the "M" denotes the location of manufacture. Again this is based on the fact that we know that the "P" on the Poole made examples denotes that location. I would expect contractors, for a government contract, to mark their work in the same or similar manner and not in a totally different manner.

Note also the gap between the "M" and "49".

That is my personal view on these markings.

[Aragorn243]

There are at least 10 known manufacturers with an M prefix number. followed by several numbers. Maltby isn't one of them.

M 1 Accles & Pollack
M 44 J.B. Brooks & Co. Ltd.
M 47 A Birmingham Small Arms (B.S.A.), Small Heath; maker
M 53 Camelinat Ltd.
M 58 Jabez, Cliff & Co. Ltd.
M 78 Elkington; maker
M 121 W.J. Hill Ltd.
M 158 J. Lucas Ltd.
M 166 M.C.L. & Repetition Co. Ltd.
M 198 Morris Springs

[telperion]

Thank you for this insight.

In my opinion the question is, whether this M/49 (/48 and /50 as well) is a dispersal code at all an not rather place of manufacturing + year.
I think that there are some good reasons why the latter is or could be the case.

T

[Flying10uk]

There are at least 10 known manufacturers with an M prefix number. followed by several numbers. Maltby isn't one of them.

I don't think that anyone is saying that it should have.