Gordon Williamson

Sister ship of the Hai was the Hecht, another recovered Type XXIII. Ribbon again existed in Gothic and Latin, the Gothic being very rare. Thanks to Thomas Huss for the photos of the actual subs.

The Hai was a recovered Type XXIII wartime boat. Again, the early ribbons are in Gothic scrip and the later ones in Latin script. Again, the Gothic ribbons are very rare, the Latin script very scarce.

Following on from the Imperial and Kriegsmarine ribbons posted earlier, here are some of those from the Bundesmarine. Some of these ribbons are even rarer than the WW2 types. First, the Wilhelm Bauer, a recovered Type XXI wartime U-Boat which was modified and put back into service. The earlier ribbons were still made in the Gothic style as used in WW2. A variant of the first ribbon exists with the full wording Unterseeboot Wilhelm Bauer rather than just U-Boot. A variant of the second type exists with a dot between U and Boot rather than a hyphen thus U.Boot rather than U-Boot. Both types were made in either wire weave or cellulose thread weave. The gothic version is very rare as is the type with the dot between U and Boot.

Reverse

Assmann

Reverse

Wernstein

Ricard, DK in cloth were not awarded, only in metal. Cloth versions had to be privately purchased. You can often find them with price tickets still attached. KM versions in cloth are rarer than Army or Luftwaffe and probably on a par with Panzer examples.

Don, I've had several original Schott badges and one thing they all had in common was that the reverse face wasn't smooth but was covered in fine scratch lines. I'm guessing this was from the brass stamping being held against a linishing belt to smooth off the rough edges. Every original I have seen has been like this. The reverse of the one you show looks smooth but it isn't a terribly clear shot.

Love that photo ! Not so easy to find Imprial Feldgendarmerie pics. Knowing absolutely zip about Imperial Army Uniforms, is there any way to tell from the photo which of the States this young Leutnant with sore head and freshly awarded EK2 is from ?

I agree, lovely example. It's one piece of KM headgear I haven't found yet !. Strange to think that such a large, cumbersome piece of headgear would be used on U-Boats, but it most certainly was.

Magnificent jacket !

What got me was the gorgets that two of them are wearing. Came with a pile of Polizei related photos. Is that a Bicorn hat the guy with the Gorget is wearing ?

What the ?????????

Phil, Michel is absolutely correct. Frank & Reif did not make these badges. I believe all the original known badges from this firm (Army) are mid / late war zinkers with the makers name in relief, so that the name was reverse stamped into the die face. I don't think this firm (which described itself as "metal stampers" as opposed to award manufacturers, only came into the badge market in the second half of the war. I don't believe they were making Tombak naval badges like this in the first half of the war. The badge is a fairly close copy of the Schwerin type and can also be found unmarked. The unmarked ones fooled a lot of people when they first appeared and were passed off as unmarked Schwerins.

With respect, I'm afraid I'm not convinced by the "I've never seen one so they can't exist" type of argument. For one thing, for a number of awards, Steinhauer are just about the rarest maker you can find so that fact there aren't loads of them around means nothing. There are some Steinhauer pieces where I only know of two or three in collectiosn world wide. For another, Steinhauer catalogue illustrations are some of the most accurate you will find and show design details which are discernably distinct to that maker so I don't buy the idea of all their other illustrations being accurate and their PAB not being. Just my opinion of course, but unless someone can establish differntly, for me this is the correct design of a Steinhauer PAB.

Just for interest, from the 1940 catalogue. here's what a Steinhauer PAB looked like.

Reverse

"50" by JFS

Reverse

Just realised that there hasn't been an FO. yet.

Reverse

A nice Zimmermann I once owned.

And the Kreissieger Badge

The Knorr Documents U-Boat Badge