Hopefully this works. First time linking photos from Amazon Drive. We are moving my in-laws and my wife was tossing stuff down from the attic - that NEVER should have been up there - and we found this bayonet. My FIL (has dementia) served in the Air Force from the mid 1950's to 1963, then reenlisted in the guards from 1980 to the late 1990's. My wife's grandfather was in the Army in WWII and hit the beaches of Normandy one week after the big day and a few months later was a POW in a German camp for 2 years I believe. My FIL was stationed in Libya for about 18 months, so we believe that either of them may have picked this up.

The bayonet has distinct full matching crescent moon markings on the spine, hand guard, and pommel. There is also a 6 pointed star on the spine of the blade and some other marking, kind of leaf like with a stem on the hand guard. On the pommel are some initials that appear to be AS.FA, but the AS could also be RS or HS very hard to make out. Any experts here that can help out identifying this bayonet?

Bayonet Photos

Sorry! Can't figure out how to display the images.

Yep, pretty close to the bayonet for my Turk Mauser.

Yes, it's a Turkish bayonet, used on various models of Turkish Mauser rifles. Turkey had several different similar models of long Mauser bayonets with hooked quillions, like the M1890 and M1903, which were all standardized and shortened to ~10" in the 1930s. This is one of the shortened models.

The Turkish lettering on the side of the blade seems to have been mostly ground/polished off.



It's also missing the latch button and mechanism.

AS.FA stands for Askari Fabrika (military factory), the Turkish state arsenal marking.

Interesting. Find rifle #1313 and you'll have a match.

The bayonet blade was made before Westernisation of the Turkish language script around 1922.

Thanks! Any info on what the various symbols mean? Cressant moon, 6 pointed star, and the leaf? Can you point me to source documentation? Many thanks!

BTW, my FIL gave it to me last night.