German WW1 Ersatz Bayonet – Carter Type EB9
Spear-pointed knife blade with single fuller, 12 3/8 inches in length, 17¼ inches overall. Steel hilt and grip with oil hole, the hilt of one-piece construction with split muzzle ring. Black-painted steel scabbard with frog hook, brown leather frog.
The hilt is stamped with the serial number '3650'. The back of the frog is faintly marked ‘M’ and lower down a ‘6’ with an illegible word below it.
The ‘ersatz’ bayonets were simplified models produced near the beginning of WW1 to fit the Gewehr 88 rifle: production had to be ramped up rapidly to equip the expanding German army, and existing factories either could not cope with demand or preferred to manufacture rifles, leaving bayonets to be made in many cases by smaller firms or ones which did not previously produce weapons.
These hastily crafted bayonets had a hard life: many were used to destruction or sold into Turkish service. There are many types to collect: in the nomenclature of Carter’s definitive book on the subject, this would be an EB9 type.
