°Etched dress bayonet:

The etched dress bayonet is an enhancement of  the KS-98 dress bayonet worn by NCO's and below. The purchaser could choose addtional options at extra cost from the dress bayonet retailer. The most common option was an acid-etched design on the blade. Normally the etched motto would be : 'Zur Erinnerung an meine Dienstzeit' (In memory of my service time).  The motto was usually surrounded with oakleaves, action scenes, airplanes, eagles ...

Other enhancments of the dress bayonet were:

•  staghorn grips or simulated staghorn grip (carved wood)
•  acid-etched pommeldesigns
•  reverse etched designs revealing the purchaser's name, owner's unit, important date
• the etched panel could have a blued background or gold filled highlights

Because of the extra cost, very few of these etched bayonets were double-etched or had stag grips.

As with the standard dress bayonet the rifle mortise had a felt material correspondig to the organization the owner belonged to:

• Red: Wehrmacht and Flak formations
• Green: Jäger and Airforce supervisory troops
• Yellow: Luftwaffe personnel
• Brown: Airforce communication troops

The most common maker marks found on the bayonets are: Carl Eickhorn, F.W. Höller, Robert Klaas.

Because of the higher value of these bayonets a lot of them found on the market today are reproductions. Look at the etch pattern, it should be of very high quality. If the bayonet has a staghorn grip look at the color, it should be yellow and not white (=new grip!). Look at the quillion, on a lot of repro bayonets there is a casting seem. The mortise key should be a near perfect match with the pommel. If there is a gap between them then that's another red flag.

Great care should be taken if someone should buy an etched dress bayonet. Buy the reference books and study them into detail. I would recommend the new book by Wayne H. Techet called  'German etched dress bayonets'.