A couple thousand M7's
A friend recently opened a sporting goods store that also consists of military surplus items (a lot of them) and he has a couple thousand M7 bayonets and scabbards in the warehouse. I had the opportunity to sort through them over the last few days and this is what I found:
Four full shopping carts of nothing but Bauer Ordnance Corporation (BOC) bayonets; one full cart of Imperial Knife bayonets; thirty or so Conetta bayonets; one Gen Cut bayonet; about a dozen Ontario Knife Company bayonets; several Frazier Manufacturing bayonets; and about 10 or so Mil Par bayonets. One Imperial bayonet with the guard turned over so the grip was mostly obscuring the “Imperial” and “U.S. M7”. Two bayonets with only “U.S. M7” with no manufacture stamp and one blank M7. No Colt’s or Eickhorn bayonets. The lion’s share of the bayonets were in 100% condition.
The scabbards consisted of: PWH (the largest quantity); Victory Plastics (VP), about 100; VIZ, about 70; WD, about 150; TWB, about 150; and Beckwith Manufacturing (B.M. CO.), about 350. Most of the Beckwith’s were M8’s while all the PWH and TWB’s were M8A1’s; all the V.P., VIZ and WD scabbards were M8A1’s but about half didn’t have the metal scabbard tip. The scabbards ranged from new to ugly with most of the Beckwith’s falling into the ugly range (painted, rusty, well used, or broken).
Fascinating few days. Ken
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