German captured French Chassepot M 1866 bayonet. Unit marked. (ABCN1805-1)(K0)(JN0)
Captured France M 1866 Chassepot needle fire rifle. Very good long bright fullered yatagan blade with 2 French inspection markings on ricasso. Blade spine is very crisp marked by French maker and dated: M're Imp'ale de Mutzig 10'bre 1868. (= Made at the Imperial factory of Mutzig, December. 1868) and two inspection markings on the reverse. Superb brass grip with external spring with no pitting. Excellent bright crossguard and muzzle ring MRD 17.5 mm and quillon with three crisp French inspector markings. Left crossguard is unit marked: 29. L. I. 4. 82 (= 29 Bataillon Landsturm Infantry Regiment von Horn, Trier, 3rd Rheinische, 4 Kompagnie, rifle number 82.)
Very good black painted scabbard is also unit marked 72. L. I. 2. 178. (= 72 Bataillon Landsturm Infantry Regiment 2. Kompagnie, rifle number 178). This is struck over French serial number and is hard to read. New added German frog stud marked with two German inspection marks. Fine peppered, but no dents
Excellent German used French M 1866 Chassepot bayonet with Landsturm Infantry unit marking on both bayonet and scabbard. Made in 1868, so this bayonet must have been used and captured after the French-German war of 1870-1871 and altered in 1873, long before the outbreak of the Great War in 1914
The Mutzig Imperial factory was situated in a historical castle in Mutzig in the Alsac and was own by the Coulaux brothers of Klingenthal. They run there factory until the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war on 19 July 1870. It was also here were Antoine Alphonse Chassepot invented his famous needle fire rifle.
