The invention relates to a system and a method for the detection of the wear state of machine parts which are subject to mechanical wear, by means of an electronic transmitting/receiving device (38) and at least one transponder device (36), which is embedded in the machine part (16) and sends back an acknowledgement signal in response to a transmitted signal which is transmitted by the transmitting/receiving device (38), in which case the reaching of a predetermined wear value can be indicated by the destruction of the transponder device (36) and by the lack of the acknowledgement signal associated with this. The invention is based on the discovery that the arrangement of a transponder device at a specific position which is a measure of a predetermined wear state means that the operational readiness of the transponder device, on the one hand, is indicated in advance by its signal return, and the reaching of the predetermined wear value is indicated by its destruction.