Hello everybody,
I am new to this great and very informative forum (although I have read a lot of it already as a guest) and also fairly new to collecting M9 bayonets!
I live in The Netherlands and getting my hands on nice/mint and rare bayonets for my growing collection is proving difficult.
I have decided to start simple (or so I thought
). I would like to collect one of each of all military types of produced Ontario M9's.
This has proven more difficult than I imagined because information about manufactured numbers and types is difficult to obtain.
So far I own a commercially sold Ontario 6143, thats the all black one with the new handle. I don't count this as part of my collection because, as far as I can find out, it has never been issued to the U.S. Military in black and because I bought it through commercial channels.
I also own a Ontario M9 in OD with the new type handle. This one was completely sealed in the original packaging and is apparantly one of 20000 of the 2005 contract (W52H09-05-C-0265), more specifically one of 5500 of the fourth and last delivery (04/06). This already has the M9 marking instead of M-9.
Lastly I own a mint Ontario M9 in the original forest green color. It is marked M-9 and so on. It seems this is one of 12500 from the 29 Sept. 1999 contract (DAAE20-99-D-0135).
However, now I am stuck. I ran out of places to search for information and so I am turning to you for help.
My question is, are there more military issued versions than the two I own? I know there are probably OD colored versions with the old type handle, maybe even ones marked M-9 and M9? I saw one in the photo section of this forum, is that a military issued version?
Are there forest green versions marked M9. I highly doubt it because as far as I know the forrest green ones were all of the 1999 contract.
Also, are there more M9 contract Ontario has had besides the 1999, 2005 and 2006 contracts. I read somewhere that there may have been a small contract (in the hundreds) in 2003?
And lastly, were all 12500 Ontario produced M9's of the 1999 contract delivered in forest green or have they been partly delivered in OD color? I would think so, because of the (probable) existance of the military issued OD versions with old type handles...
Thanks very much in advance for helping me along!
Regards,
Menno
The Netherlands
P.S. I will try to add some photographs to this topic soon!
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