Hello,

Am I ever glad to have found this group! After searching everywhere it seems like I might have found a place to get an honest answer.
Is the item in the attached photos an old ornamental dagger or is it worthless? Have you ever seen anything like it? I'm not an expert in anything to do with daggers, swords or any type of blade and a friend of mine has been asked (as a collector of unusual items) if he'd like to purchase this. So here I am, at the mercy of your undeniable expertise!

Any ideas?

Having found this site and the endless amounts of information herein I have no intention of leaving. What a wealth of knowledge there is here.

Impressed,
Amanda

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Hi Amanda,

Welcome to myArmoury! I hope you will find the information you need. In the interest of identifying this dagger, I would make the title of the post a little more specific (i.e. "Help needed identifying unusual dagger" or something).

My 2 cents: I'm no expert on this but I'd go with 18th or 19th century curio dagger or a dagger from some kind of religious order. Other than that, I'll leave the speculation to others more versed in this kind of thing.

Cheers,

All the usual disclaimers about not being an expert and stuff aside, I believe that this may very well be a satanic dagger, that is one made for satanic ritual around the turn of the last century or before (perhaps from France where such things were common). It bears many of the characteristics of others I've seen. I wouldn't even venture a guess as to the meaning of the symbolism. If you want to talk to the folks that ARE actually the experts with this sort of thing I'd suggest venturing over to www.bladeforums.com and posting in the Bernard Levine subforum. He and several others there take interest in such things and will be able to tell you if my guess is correct or not. That's not to take away from anyone here, there may be those here that are also experts in this type of thing, but I have definitely seen these things identified there.

Did it have a sheath with symbols?

Where did you find it?

Such things are of some value to collectors of like objects... personally they just give me the creeps.

What Russ said. There was a great deal of interest in the occult in the 19th century complete with Satan worship witchcraft. I've seen 2-3 other daggers of similar form over the years all of which were attributed to this period.

I seem to recall seeing something similar recently. If I remember correctly, that example was indeed an occult item, 19th c., and French. It's hard to tell from these photos, but it almost looks like the figure on Death's back has a halo, which suggests something other than an anti-Christian cult. If it's a halo, it suggests the vanquishing of death, which puts me in mind of the early 20th c. inter-war fascination with mediums, seances, ghosts, contact with departed loves ones, etc. This would look right at home on a medium's table. It also has a certain fin-de-siecle/art nouveau look about, which makes me think it's early 20th c.

AHA! Here's what I found when I searched for "occult dagger" on Google:

Old occult Dagger, Hilt of Herculean Man Battling DEATH. $1500.00, dans antique and collectable blades. Listing has pictures ....

The link didn't lead to the listing, unfortunately. But at the very least you should not sell this dagger yet. Could be quite valuable.

See this site for more clues:

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=3897

The blade/dagger - I don't know what to call it. Was located in the basement of an elderly man who claimed to have brought it back with him from WW2. That's the story passed on by family members that are alive today.

I thank you all for your input and answers - how helpful. I certainly won't let this get sold until more is known and I will definitely keep you updated.

If there are more opinions and ideas I'm open to hearing them!

-Amanda

Here's a link to an item on Lion's Gate which looks very much like the dagger in question:

http://www.antiqueswords.com/mw57.htm