Going by what that knife is telling us, it seems to be proof that manufacturers were indeed working within a period of grace (going into 1939) granted by the RZM after the order to discontinue the motto was promulgated.
I know that some are of the opinion that any knife with motto that is also marked with the year 1939 must be a fake but the questions must be asked are these:
how realistic is it to assume that manufacturers instantly switched to production of knives (without motto) in September 1938.
how realistic is the assumption that existing stocks of motto blades were melted down when the order was promulgated?
As I mentioned in post #1, the RZM published
HJ knife manufacturing instructions on 14.9.1935 which stated that knives should have the 'Blut und Ehre' motto and that they should be marked with the RZM symbol, M7 maker number and year of manufacture but in the various lists describing early, transitional and late knives, this change is attributed to knives produced between 1936 and 1938. If the compilers of these lists are happy to attribute a knife made in accordance with this new instruction to 1936 rather than to 1935 then why should a knife with motto and the year 1939 be necessarily wrong? In essence, what I'm getting at is this:
14.9.1935: RZM markings are introduced for HJ knives. These knives are however invariably lumped into the band 1936-38 in modern books and on websites.
19.8.1938: the motto is discontinued. The lists now do not give any leeway and put RZM-marked knives with no motto strictly into 1938.
To understand the sequence of events better, it would be very useful to know more about how these knives were made and to establish, for example, whether etching was a single step during production (RZM symbol, year and motto all added at the same time i.e. is it possible that blades had the motto applied first and in a further process the RZM symbol and MM?) and whether any special equipment (jigs for example) were required to get that motto onto the blade (I'm thinking here of things that may have made it difficult for manufacturers to quickly comply with the 19.8.1938 order). It seems logical that the etching was done in one step but logic isn't enough on its own to make a definitive statement on the validity of 1939 knives with motto. Making a descision based on that one thing alone is just as bad as those who go simply by the date of the order and say "impossible that a knife can have the motto and '1939' on it!"
Hopefully Russ and Scott will give their opinion on the knife in post 1 from a blade collector's point of view. As the owner of just one beat-up old Puma I'm not best placed to comment in that regard