How did these things work?

[Luftmensch]

Once upon a time,

I used to think a pilot's squadron mates got together, kicked in a few marks each, and bought him a ciggy case. They had engraved a date and their signatures to identify the donors of the gift and commemorate the occasion.

When I posted Otto Wieprich's case with the original 1923 inscription on one side...

It became very obvious that most of the famous aviators' signatures on the opposite side were added piecemail over the next decade or longer. Most of these names were nobodies in 1924...

Edited January 9, 2006 by Luftmensch

[Luftmensch]

There are a lot of these signed tchotchkes around. Here's another one, a little different because of the fragile enamel paiting of a taube, which has taken a lot of edge knocks over the years. This belonged to a Lt. Kohlmann (I have no first initial).

Edited January 9, 2006 by Luftmensch

[Luftmensch]

Like Otto's case, some of these were added later--in fact some of these names were added after the war, one is dated "19" and another "1920".

Back of case

[Luftmensch]

My question is: did the owner take a facsimile signature of a friend to a jeweller? Did his friend send money to the jeweller or donate it along with his signature to defray the cost? Or was it at the expense and the direction of the owner to embellish his own piece over time? Not earth-shattering questions, but what about with a piece like this, which someone paid about $8,000 for at Hermann Historica?

It looks like Immelmann was the earliest signator on the front corner in 1916, and then the names went up the center in 1917 around the back in 1918 and a few stragglers inside in 1919.

So clearly these aces didn't all get together at one time and buy him a birthday gift!

In the best case this pilot was intimate friends with all these famous pilots who said, one at a time, as he drew out a cigarette, "Ach, Willi, you must put my name on your fine case!"

Next best he was acquainted with them, and collected their names the way some people collect signed photos or autographs. Otto Wieprich may have done that as he met these celebrity pilots at the airports he managed. I doubt very much Lindbergh said to Otto, "Yo, Otto, congrats on that Red Banner order!" I'm sure the celebrity recognition was fairly one sided. Unless there was a lot of friendly fraternization among pilots and they really got to know each other.

Worst case, wouldn't it be awful if some jeweller had these signatures on file and added them for a fee? Whether 1918 or 1928? That would be a trick for Bruno Stachel.

And were these field engraved? Or did the pilot have a bunch of signatures on paper by the time he made it to a sizeable town on leave where there was a good engraver?

I NEVER see these on RAF, RFC or USAS silver unless it was done all at once for a presentation--not over time...

I'm confused.

Rgds

John

Edited January 9, 2006 by Luftmensch

[David Gregory]

John,

I can't offer any explanation as to how and when the engravings were added, but these items really are significant and unique pieces of aviation history.

Genuine aviation badges can be obtained almost immediately if you are prepared to pay the price a good dealer asks, but one-of-a-kind items such as these probably remain in collections for a long time.

Thanks for showing them.

David

[Les]

My question is: did the owner take a facsimile signature of a friend to a jeweller? Did his friend send money to the jeweller or donate it along with his signature to defray the cost? Or was it at the expense and the direction of the owner to embellish his own piece over time? Not earth-shattering questions, but what about with a piece like this, which someone paid about $8,000 for at Hermann Historica?

John,

O'Connor mentioned Jacobs (?) writing his name in grease-pencil on his Ehrenbecher during the war, and intending to have his name engraved, but never did. The grease-pencil signature was still on it when he died, 50 some years later.

Engraving can be done if the engraver has a keen eye, and a skilled "forger." Usually, what most engravers do is write or draw on the item, and then follow the line-work. Jacob's writing his name directyly on the goblet suggests this was what his jeweler/egraver either preferred or was capable of doing. It's also possible that doing it this way was common practice.

The randomn order of signatures "all over the place" and tucked in where there was space for signatures hints that the names were written directly on the items, and the engraver simply chiselled out the names directly as they were written, rather than trying to copy them. (Copying can be done...although it may takes more skill and time.)

The "no bodies" who signed their names in the 1920's and possibly early '30's to that case, may have added their names incremementally over time. They look neatly lined up, which kind of suggests that when somone saw the case, the list of names appeared orderly (like a petition document does when someone sticks one under your nose to have you sign it), and deliberate.

Mess-mates presenting an item might have added their names during/after some party (with the imbibing of alchohol adding to the choatic and randomn way singatures were added) asked to sign their names might do so hastily. The formal order of the names on the piece now in your collection, suggests something along the lines of an autograph hunter adding names to his collection, and those who signed their names keeping a sense of decorum and order in the process.

Needless to say, I'm speculating and blowing wind here....java script:emoticon('', 'smid_7')

Btw, that's some grouping!!!! Almost every item even as stand-alone items, are important items historically, and in more than one or two instances, would form the core of some collections.

Les

[Luftmensch]

Thanks, Les. That makes a lot of sense. Perhaps the bidder on that third case added up the market values of all those names on Sankes and figured 8 grand was a bargoon...

[Les]

Worst case, wouldn't it be awful if some jeweller had these signatures on file and added them for a fee? Whether 1918 or 1928? That would be a trick for Bruno Stachel.

John

I hate to think where that thought can lead.....

There is an old pre-WWII German publication that provides biographical sketches of PlM (and other) aviation reipients....but this one is very different from many of the other bios on the market. This particular one includes fascimile signtures of the individuals being written about...some who died during the war, and some who survived. The book is an expensive one, and a "gold mine" for anyone with fradulent intentions who wants to add signatures to Sanke/Liersch, etc, cards and enhance the value of a plain one, a "tad."

A worst case, and infact possible nightmare scenario is someone who finds old silver, and has it embellished...."marries" it to other items, and proclaims they have a group, which...ahem....they so happen to be offering for sale for a friend, on consignment, or perhaps, "just in" from somewhere or other.

We often assume that "intermediaries" may embellish stories of what happened, do things to groupings or to items they've acquired, but as you hint at, there is a definite possibility that a veteran who did quite a bit on his own, might resort to a little "gilding the lilly" and pretending to be more important than his life really was. Afterall, there are known veterans who lied about what they did (or didn't do) while in or out of uniform.

Les

[Les]

Thanks, Les. That makes a lot of sense. Perhaps the bidder on that third case added up the market values of all those names on Sankes and figured 8 grand was a bargoon...

John,

Hand-engraving, done with a chasing hamer and chisels is a -skill- that requires a lot of practice, and takes time to learn it well. What I've learned talking to engravers (and also from studying Japanese swords back when I was many moons younger) is that eventually specifically favored tools are used by the same engraver in preference to other similar tools. The combination of indiviual "motor skills" (nerves, hand-eye co-ordination, firmness of the strike or stroke) result in cuts or chisel marks that when seen under high-magnification can be used to "fingerprint" the way a person works. In short, engravers develop a style of their own, which in some case can be used to identify if the same person engraved everything, and all about the same time.

The signatures might look different, but if the individual cut/chisel marks look like they were made by the same tool(s), the mark/cuts are the same length and depth, same angels, all seem to go in the same direction, and so on, that's a clue to whether or not something was made in one-go, or over time by several engravers.

A photograph won't tell much, however a careful examination using a jewelers loupe, 3-D microscope lenses, etc. might provides some tell-tale clues to answer specific questions we might have about an item or items.

Les

[Stogieman]

Perhaps the new owner of the Observer case I sold this past fall will add it to the thread......... a simple engraved dedication of respect from one man to another.......

[VtwinVince]

John, that case from HH which sold for eight grand, is that an authenticated item? I've never seen anything like it in terms of the number of high profile people represented.

[Luftmensch]

John, that case from HH which sold for eight grand, is that an authenticated item? I've never seen anything like it in terms of the number of high profile people represented.

Good question. Buying exotica from HH is sometimes like a high-wire act! You're on your own, and the price is way up there!

Hmmmm...I've never used that expression before. It could also mean you can look like a star, until something is proven bad, and you realize you have no net! Think of some of that Richthofen stuff that went off.

[VtwinVince]

I like your analogy.

[Luftmensch]

Here's an observer's case, with a simple dedication from a wife or girlfriend in 1915.

From "Deine Mia"

There are a few signatures in the bottom left, but the collection didn't get very far. Maybe his opportunities were cut short!

[Luftmensch]

I've posted this clunker of a gift before. Too elegant to scribble names on the top, and inside it is cedar lined. I wonder if this was actually posted to the front?

[Luftmensch]

At the risk of getting drummed out, here are a few pieces from Allied flyers, all presented on fixed occasions. I have NEVER a case or piece of silver to an Allied pilot in which donors single themselves out for attention, unless a single dedication from a loved one.

Here the donors are split out by rank! A heartfelt piece to a chief mechanic!

[Luftmensch]

Simple, elegant. Is the date a birthday?

[Luftmensch]

But my most treasured piece of silver is the plainest, this time from air mechanics to a very popular officer, "Mad" Major Draper, RNAS, who flew UNDER most of the bridges on the Thames while in his 60s to prove that older pilots weren't necessarily all washed up.

He wrote in his autobiography that this was his most treasured possession (such a gift at the time had been against regulations).

[VtwinVince]

Thanks for posting those items, John, they make very interesting viewing.