LANCAY M9 Bayonet with General Cutlary Blood Grove Blade

[Quarterbore]

LANCAY M9 Bayonet with General Cutlary Blood Grove Blade
A very rare variant of the M9 bayonet that is curently on EBAY.
This Knife is FOR SALE!!! Here is a link to the auction

About this knife:

Following is from my M9 Page that describes this knife:

Lan-Cay received it’s first contract for 30,500 M9 bayonets on 3/31/92 from the U.S. Army with an additional 21,500 bayonets added during the contract. In an effort to quickly supply the Army with new M9 bayonets after Desert Storm, Lan-Cay turned to General Cutlery as a sub-contractor to provide near completed blades for assembly at the Lan-Cay facility. This sub-contract proved to be totally unworkable, and only about 300 General Cutlery made blades were ever passed by the Army inspectors and put into U.S. military service. The remainder of the General Cutlery blades were then demiled and destroyed as required by the Army.

All General Cutlery produced blades are easily identified as they are stamped on the ricasso "M9 / LANCAY / USA" in block letters of equal size. This form of marking was used only on the General Cutlery made blades and will not be used again.

These General Cutlery made M9 bayonets were produced in a very limited number and are extremely rare as most were destroyed before issue. At least 300 examples, possibly more, were delivered to the Army and are now in collections and/or the supply system.

Here is the description from the auction:

Quote:Rare Early first M9 Bayonet made by LANCAY (all large letters) in mint condition. This early LANCAY was the very first bayonet maufactured by LanCay Inc. The blade was made by General Cutlary since LanCay did not have their machinery set up to make blades. This blade has the blood groove (fuller). Very few were made, approximately 300 were sent to the U.S. Military. The remainder were odered destroyed by the US Military. Making it one of the most highly prized U.S. Military Bayonets by collectors. For more information on this very rare bayonet Reference www.quarterbore.com. The pommel on this bayonet is the correct unmarked early type. The scabbard is the earlier four loop type. The cutter plate has the screw driver on the side instead of the bottom but is of the early unmarked type. The blade has the original factory ground edge, the gray blasted finish, and the normal General Cutlary rough forge marks.

I e-mailed the seller and asked for some better pics especially of the blade markings to go with the website write up and he sent me the following photos:

[Quarterbore]

I want to offer John a HUGE THANK YOU for providing these photos so that I can share them here and the webpage!

[Quarterbore]

Quote:porterkids wrote:
Buyers should be very careful when purchasing GenCut M9s. Many bayonets were put together around 2002 using older blades with newer component parts. Things to look for are unmarked pommel, screw driver at the end, not side, of the cutter plate and a 92 dated Fastex connector.

Quote:Slufstuff wrote:
I agree with Bill, You need to know what you are looking at when you look to buy a General Cutlery bladed M9. Bill gives good points, I will only clarify that the original GI contract Gen. Cutlery blade M9 has NO LanCay markings on the butt. The 2002 put togethers he refers to will have late production Lan-Cay marked butt pieces. The example of put together I examined also had a slight, but noticeably different blade profile compared to the genuine USGI GenCut M9.

[Carlo]

I have a question that I wanted to ask in the past about the General Cutlery LANCAY but I didn't for a simple reason.
I don't want the forum readers to think that I'm goign to re-sell a bayonet that I have, trying to gain a profit from what it is not.
Anyway, I managed to buy, back in 2003, what I beleived was a General Cutlery LANCAY.
I soon discovered that it was part of the lot that was re-assembled in 2002.
1) the pommell was un-marked but in black color, not gray;
2) the Fastex was marked 95;
3) the scabbard was of the second contract.
Few years later, I was able to find few parts from a LanCay first contract:
1) correct un-marked grey pommell;
2) correct first contract scabbard (four loops, sharpening stone, marked LANCAY);
3) correct early wire cutter plate, with screw driver at the end, not side.
There was only a "problem"....the Fastex I found was marked 94-95 (don't remember now), not 92.
Now my questions are:
a) Considering what I wrote before and assuming I would be able to find a correct top web assembly (92 marked), would then still be possibile to say that the bayonet I have came from the 2002 lot?
Just to be clear: I will NOT sell it on ebay saying that it is an original General Cutlery...just wanted to know if I should start looking for a duplicate or not.
b) In the messages above, someone talked about a difference on the blade, between an "original" General Cutlery and the re-assembled 2002 lot.
I would be interested to know if this difference is visible or not;
c) Am I correct saying that the Gen. Cutl. re-assembled LANCAYs, in 2002, used original Gen. Cutlery blades?
Apologize for my english!

[porterkids]

The bayonets that were put together in the 2002 time period used the original blades. Most of the ones I've seen have some type of visible flaw, not bad, but enought to keep them from being accepted by the Army. I believe that blades that had been rejected were salvaged and used to build bayonets to be sold on the commercial market.

If someone were to take one of the General Cutlery blades and assemble a bayonet with the correct component parts it would be exactly the same as the ones that were made at the beginning of the contract. The Fastex connector would have to be dated 92.

[Carlo]

Managed to take some pictures.....



















Date code on fastex is 94, so it is clearly not correct, and the overall quality of the blade doesn't seem too good to me, so the bayonet I have was probably rejected as well....

[rexmeyer]

Carlo, I too probably have one of the redone General Cutlery blades.. Mine came with the correct scabbard and the knife was correct, except it had a fastex dated 94 and the screwdriver was on the side. The wording was not well stamped the A in usa is alittle light...With all the spares I have I was able to put the correct straight screwdriver on the bottom and the correct fastex date of 92. Recently I was able to purchase and original which was all correct. I will try to post them side by side if I can borrow my wifes' better digital camera so maybe you can see them together so that you can see the comparison...By the way yours' looks pretty good compared to the one I have. The only reason I bought it was I didn't think I would ever come across another for my collection...

[Carlo]

Originally Posted by rexmeyer

Carlo, I too probably have one of the redone General Cutlery blades.. Mine came with the correct scabbard and the knife was correct, except it had a fastex dated 94 and the screwdriver was on the side. The wording was not well stamped the A in usa is alittle light...With all the spares I have I was able to put the correct straight screwdriver on the bottom and the correct fastex date of 92. Recently I was able to purchase and original which was all correct. I will try to post them side by side if I can borrow my wifes' better digital camera so maybe you can see them together so that you can see the comparison...By the way yours' looks pretty good compared to the one I have. The only reason I bought it was I didn't think I would ever come across another for my collection...

I would like to thank Bill for the clarification and Rex for his answer.
In the picture of my bayonet the word "A" of USA is also not well stamped...seems we got the same "deal"
I would love to see pictures of yours genuine Gen. Cutlery and compare them to what I have.
I little bit off topic about "taking pictures of our loved M9s".
I use a compact camera (canon) in full auto, but while taking pictures I follow some advices that Ken (the site owner) gave me some time ago, and I'm quite happy with the results:
1) I always take pictures OUTSIDE, when there are coulds and the sky is "grey"-no sun. This way, at around 1 p.m. o' clock, there will be enough light to take good pictures, there will not be shadows on the bayonet, and (most important) the flash will be off.
2) When I want to take a picture of the markings on the blade (or the bayonet pommell) I select the camera's "macro" option: this way what is in the middle of the pictures will always be focused and very detailed.
Follow these two rules and you can't go wrong....

[Carlo]

I was wondering when we were going to see a genuine one for sale
http://cgi.ebay.com/Very-Rare-US-Mil...3A2%7C294%3A50

[rexmeyer]

Carlo if you look closely at the wording on the blade of this you can see the wording is well stamped and none of the letters are faint like you will find on most of the later put together ones that were found at the factory.. Also Bill Porter was right about the blade looking ilregular...