ITALIAN WWII UNIDENTIFIED DRESS DAGGER.

In over 50 years of handling Italian edged weapons we have come across a huge variety, many which are unidentified. Many of the daggers that we have discovered have been constructed clearly from various other Italian arms and the example we offer here is exactly that. Its origins are that of 1917 assault dagger with its central raised double sided blade, which has been chrome plated, fitted to its assault dagger leather scabbard with its leather belt loop. The cross guard is in high polished nickel in oval form similar to other Italian daggers. The hilt is a cut down 1888 officers sword, which has had the basket hilt removed, only retaining the back strap and the four fingered grip. Fitted to the grip is an impressive Italian down swept winged eagle with the Fascist symbol within its claws. A very similar but not identical example is shown on pages 66 and 67 of the excellent work in Italian text Del Pugnale Il Fiero Lampo, an encyclopaedia of Italian edged weapons from 1915 to 2010. The subsequent pages show other features of the dagger which concur with our analysis of the daggers being made from various other weapons. We firmly believe that this is an ARDITI Fighting knife carried over from the First War period, added with the Fascist insignia.

Code: 90772