They are rare indeed. Even here in germany these artillery bayonets can be count as (semi) forgotten and are hard to find. Cheers, Vincent.

You could try to get each rifle its own bayonet as a start. Or just start with one type of bayonet and try to find all the diffrent variations of it. Imperial german bayonets are getting more and more expensive and tougher to find but some are still relativly cheap. The S71/84 for example or the S98 old and new pattern. I think since the 100 year celebration of the first world war more people are getting into german bayonets. Cheers, Vincent.

Hello, yes, i do clean my bayonets and swords but just enough to remove rust and to preserve the piece. I dont aggresivly polish or do any restoration work. I use WD40 to remove rust and then i rub the blade clean with very fine steel wool. If i have a scabbard for the blade i dont do anything more, if i dont have a scabbard i give the blade a very fine layer of balistol oil. Keep them all dry and thats all i do. I dont really know if this is the best way and there are a lot of methods to remove rust, WD40 just happens to work for me the best. Cheers, Vincent.

Mauser M1871

Hey, that sounds like a rare marking on such a bayonet. It indicates that this bayonet was issued to the "8th Train-Bataillon, 6th Feldlazarett (engl. field hospital) of the 8th army corps, weapon no. 31." Cheers, Vincent.