The first knife bayonet was introduced for the first German rifle with a magazine Rifle M1871/84. The knife-bayonet, which had been adopted in January 1884, was named M71/84. This bayonet was one of the very first adopted knife bayonets in the world.

1905 a modification of the earlier S71/84 bayonet was introduced for Rifle M98 and named SG 84/98. This follows the old pattern without flash guard. The barrel ring was removed to enhance the precision capacity of the rifle. Instead the stock with the bayonet lug took the full impact in case of the bayonet was used against the enemy and the barrel was not affected.

This bayonet is the oldest thing I own and is anywhere from 111-132 years old seeing how the original model was retired and had the barrel ring had been removed, I was given this bayonet by a very close friend on Christmas day along with a cheap kukri, now being the type of person I was I looked up this knife in a attempt to find out it's history and ended up finding out it has a value around $150 dollars needless to say I was amazed at the price and age of the weapon, now I know you aren't supposed to clean these weapons and I've done a lot to maintain it's current state, the only thing I've done to the weapon was oil it picking up a lot of the rust and shining it up, I keep it in a case to protect it from any other possible harm.