dond

The inside.

I hope this fits in here.

Nobody else have an opinion?

Is that a Godet I see?

Looks ok to me. What is the number on the pin?

Where would the regulations published, in General Orders, Army pubs?

I doubt that- I still train every day with young soldiers so I'm still in pretty good shape. That and my day starts at 0415 Mon-Fri. You'll still be hitting the snooze button and I'll have it back at the house.

Very nice looking cross and case. I would beat Chris to it in an instant.

Another group gone, and for crazy money.

I here you Chip but the photographic record doesn't support that. It would have been just as easy to provide the badge to all the soldiers in the unit as it was to supply them with anything else. And its not like they had a butt load of uniforms with them. I look at armies today and you can see the same thing. Look at the US Army for example. We started Ranger School for the Rangers, Air Assualt School for the 101st, Airborne for the Airborne etc... and each has thier specific qualification badge. Once those units were filled with qualified guys the schools were opened up to others because they are go to know skills. Why wouldn't the germans do the same? They had machineguns along the whole front and having specially trained subject matter experts in thier use would have made sense. What commander wouldn't want to have his guys trained?

I've always thought it was given out for graduating a specialty course on machinegun operations. You rarely see everyone in a unit wearing it.

There are at least two of us from here trying to get it all. Unfortunately this just plays into the hands of the seller and confirms his strategy.

I think we need to distinguish between made and awarded. For instance, the RK was made by numerous companies and in far greater numbers than what was awarded. Some companies even made them after the war. Logically speaking there are more of them out there. The PLM was made by only a few companies and not really mass produced by today's standards. It too was produced after the wars. Even still, the limitted number of awards of the PLM vs the RK means it is a much rarer bird.

The reverse. It has much in common with the others originals in its construction.

Here is another that I missed on ebay due to a technical difficulty- I was drinking. Made by Carl (or Karl) Leburg of Strassburg.

The reverse. Note that the pins are bent in the same pattern as the Juncker.

Here's another one, made by the Stuttgart Metallfabrik. This badge is almost entirely of zink except for the pins soldered to it for fastening to the backing plate. Remainents of a finish are visible.

Definately original, rare, and in great condition.

Thanks for showing this Les. I'll look it over this weekend. Right now I am celebrating the birth of my first grandchild, a beautiful baby boy.

We still haven't heard from either of these members....

Les, why not just post the scans here yourself? I for one, would like to see this PLM fake you are talking about. I would like to make my own determination on this. thanks for all the helpful info guys.

The reverse setup looks like that found on early schinkels.

Here's one that shares many of the obverse charactoristics of yours. It must be a 1939 or later piece because it measures 43+mm. It would measure 44mm except it is nicely vaulted.

Thanks for clearing that up Prosper. So somebody got a great badge and ebay got screwed out of a commission.

It didn't. Starting bid was 1.99 euro but nobody bid.