newbie with question

[oldguy03]

Picked up my 1st LanCay M9 and have spent a bunch of time looking at the M9bayonets.com website trying to figure this out. I hope the pictures are OK, but, my question is that the blade lettering is LanCay which indicates 1st style after Gen Cut blades, but the blade is blackened, not light grey and there is no variance in height at the top of the blade as shown on early models, rather it is straight across like later Lan-Cay lettering. Scabbard has the screwdriver at an angle instead of straight out the bottom and is dated 93 on the connector. This does not appear to be 1st LanCay production as blade color is wrong and lettering does not match later Lan-Cay production. Before these things become an obsession, a little help please. Thanks in advance.

[Menno]

Hi,

If you look at the 'History of the Lan-Cay Bayonet' in the general m9 bayonet part of the forum you can find the following line there:

"The second group of P.I. M9 bayonets with the full list of changes including the finish were delivered to the Army on 8/18/95 making this the first group of the second contract. Now comes the tricky part, during the second contract production the blade grinding was changed over from hollowing grinding to flat grinding to give the blade a stronger edge. Examples of both the flat grind and the hollow grind can be found with the standard for the time marking of "M9 / LANCAY / USA"."

It seems yours is one of these. However the '93 marking on the Fastex clip is a little weird. Maybe they used a scabbard from an older contract lying around, or maybe you scabbard and knife are not a match originally.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Menno
The Netherlands

[porterkids]

This is an early second contract bayonet. It has the original Phrobis style scabbard, LanCay blade marking (without hyphen), and I'm not 100% sure but it looks like it is a hollow ground blade. The transition to the PI scabbard and the change to the Lan-Cay marking happened during the second contract.

[oldguy03]

Would like to thank you for the guidance into locating better answers. I bought Gary Cunningham's bookand had located the M9bayonet.com site but those two sources are a bit confusing until more clarity is given. I've got alot to learn about these models and hope to become more informed with the help of many of you. Mahalo Nui Loa