Quite a large amount of material used by the Imperial Army was "Property marked". (Praise the everlasting stinginess of governmental organisations!) In the days before the Great War weapons, equipment and articles of clothing that were issued to the troops were often stamped with markings associating it with a Corps and/or a Regiment or Battalion. Regimental property markings identified a weapon or article to a particular Regiment. In the case of weapons they usually identified the company too and gave a unique number to the weapon within the company, a Waffennummer. Clothing or equipment was usually just marked down to battalion or company level. With the beginning of the Great War marking fell out of favour, not only because the enemy could gain information about who was were facing from them and because troops and equipment were constantly being re-allocated*, but also because of the huge influx of war material that was now needed and the amount of time that would have been needed to carry it out.
*British intelligence warned of the dangers of deducing a soldier's regiment from property marked equipment because of this; the Soldbuch was a better method of determining its owner's unit.

A typical regimental marking might read:

  102.R.8.139. [102nd Infantry Regiment, 8th Company, weapon number 139]

Corps property markings however were usually marked to the Clothing Depot of that Army Corps or Bekleidungsamt. These Depots had skilled tradesmenemployed in making, repairing or converting equipment and clothing as well as being a depot for articles produced externally. This type of marking justidentifies that the aricle had been issued out from that Army's Depots to its units. Typically they look like this:

  B.A.XVIII.[18th Army Corp's clothing depot].

As things 'changed hands', or were relegated back from the line regiments towards the Militia because of obsolescence, markings were removed or wereover-stamped them before being re-marked to their new owners. Or simply received another marking. In this fashion a 'history' of the article can be found thathas built up on it during its useful lifetime.

Armies the world over are not short of rules or regulations, and the Prussian Army, which was regarded as something of a model in its time, was no exception.There were official regulations governing how and where articles were to be marked. And most of the time things were marked according to these conventions. Of course, sometimes they were not - but for the most part like British Commonwealth markings they provide a valuable insight into its place in history. With non-standard markings we cannot do anything better than hazard an educated guess - even with a bit of judicious juggling (sorry) of context and numbers. For the collector today, they are a fascinating link with the past that enables one to tie an object to a particular unit. To me at least, that somehow provides a greater, more tangible satisfaction to my collecting. And of course, there were always units that enjoyed a greater kudos - and it's always pleasant to find a piece that holds their markings.

It was property markings that first caused me to become interested in placing a list of the German Army out here in the web. This is naturally only the baldest overview of the topic, and if you are interested in identifying or researching pieces then there are a couple of links that may be of use: On regimental and property markings, Jeff Noll's website details his book on the subject here, and Mark Conrad's article on the Bayonet Collector's Network on "Bringing your Collection to life" discusses strategies for tracing a piece's owner and details resources you can use.
 
 

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