PKeating

That is desperate, isn't it? Hope the buyer was a shill rather than a newbie.

However, thanks to Luftmensch for cheering me up with that wonderful cased example with the lapel pin.

Impressive. Looks hardly worn, in the sense that, unless my eyes deceive me, you can still make out the overspray from its time as a black helmet. I wouldn't be worried about the Dachau/Oberbayern connection. It's merely an historical object. Not every SS man who spent time at Dachau was connected with the prison camp part of the complex although I'll grant you that a member of the Oberbayern Standarte probably was. However, it is not as if the helmet was worn by a guard at Treblinka.

PK

Looks like the smaller FFL (Free French) M?daille Coloniale. Impressive group. Probably served as a military attach? to a few royal courts in the empire or soon-to-be former empire.

PK

Hallo Rick!

Stogieman isn't wrong in referring to the "late 1970s" lore. The first rayback die tryouts were in the late 1970s. I believe a few unbacked badges were struck in various white metals and in silver. The silver was, as far as I know, standard Sterling, which never looks quite like period .800 or even .935 continental alloys. More dies came in the early 1980s, specifically around the time of the Royal Wedding in 1981. They were produced by the same small group of characters who were behind other fakes like the DFCs, DCMs and rare Crimea clasps. That in fact is what got them into serious hot water as it qualified as forgery from the viewpoint of the authorities, as these medals were British Crown items. Not that they ever faced arrest but they were learnt upon. Some of the dies could have left the UK in the interim and fetched up in the Hamburg area and, according to the lore machine, Paris. Geoff Hurst is long dead but I see the names of some of the half-dozen or so involved cropping up here and there from time to time. I can spot the "London Badges" a mile off and can only echo Stogieman's caveat about the extreme rarity of genuine, period Bavarian badges. The Prussian ones are rare enough but Bavarian ones qualify as unicorn droppings. Prussian Marine Pilot Badges are also incredibly rare but you wouldn't think so if you took a tour around the internet or any large militaria show. Same applies to Zeppelin Badges, 1921 Tank Badges and so on.

PK

Well, the internet has made it easier for collectors to exchange information, thereby making it harder for crooks to swindle them, and a lot of high end fakes have been detected in the past few years. Back in the day, before the internet exposed the majority of collectors to the tiny minority of awkward types who took a "forensic" approach to their hobby, people didn't ask so many questions. In those days, for instance, if a Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 1939 was made of three pieces and not obviously by Souval, it was accepted as genuine. 99% of people then would not have been able to tick off the authorised manufacturers of the KC on their fingers as they can nowadays. Of course, fakers are still trying it on, one of the new strategies involving hitherto unknown variants about which experts from nowhere compose convincing articles, illustrated with photos of said variant supplied by people who swear blind that their ancestors received that very item by special courier whilst lying wounded in the snows beside the Volga. 90% of collectors having a jackdaw or jackass mentality, they lap it up like Kool-Ade because they want to believe it. I see all sorts of things posted on these forums whose origins I recall from a misspent youth but I have largely given up trying to warn people because they don't want to be warned that what they have is a piece of junk. I am banned from at least half the forums on the web for trying to promote truth and reality. Not that I care, mind you. But in the end, what is the point of wasting energy on lost causes? It's a bit like the art forger who fooled the art world with some "Da Vinci" drawings: when he revealed the truth, they treated him like a madman...because they had vested interests in suppressing his truth. Same with a lot of these expensive fakes.

PK

Back around 1981/82, a very naughty man who went by the name of Geoff Hurst and a couple of elderly diecutters in the Clerkenwell district of London produced some beautiful dies and tools for Imperial rayback flight badges... Forgers often incorporated tiny marks or flaws in order that they and their friends be able to quickly identify their work. It's rather like the punctuation marks on the fake Conrath documents sold to George Petersen years ago by a couple of Hamburg-based dealers, one of whom operates an authentication service, despite being unable, it seems, to provide any evidence that he is formally recognised as an expert according to relevant German law.

And that's all I will say.

PK

Who issued the certificate?

PK

I was amused by the assertion that Panzerpope was forced to join the HJ. Rubbish! Nobody was forced to join. People were not even pressurised. One volunteered because one wished to be in the Hitlerjugend. Oh well, the Vatican has a safe pair of hands at the helm: contraceptives remain illegal.

PK

That's one of the most amazing EK documents I have ever seen.

PK

Ed,

I doubt it sincerely. The Guant?namo risk, I mean. The US Constitution obliges citizens to overthrow tyrannical government by force of arms if necessary. However, I do not reside in the United States. We've discussed the Stolen Valor thing to death on this forum and others. Nothing has been done about resisting this legislation, despite all the huffing and puffing. It's only a matter of time before similar legislation is passed in Europe and elsewhere. Apart from anything else, our glorious leaders take the view that any transactions they cannot tax must be prevented. Government has been trying to tax private sales of collectibles for years. In France, for example, you cannot pay in cash for anything bought in an auction house for more than ?600,00 because of laws made, they claim, to combat money-laundering "by criminals from the former Eastern Bloc". The real money-laundering is done through the same private, off-shore banks in which our tax-fed leaders hide all the money they steal from us. If anyone believes that laws preventing trade in militaria have nothing to do with trying to stamp out untaxable commerce, they are very na?ve. I expect some readers will sneer at this post but the sad fact of the matter, as we can see, is that extreme violence is the only way in which one can influence politicians and the shady people financing them. If you don't believe that, then ask yourself why so many of our own terrorists are on the loose. Ask yourself why the PIRA won in Ulster. Violence works. History proves it. That 90% of Westerners have lost their bottle is the only reason every lamppost in the street outside our houses doesn't have politicians and their accomplices dangling from it.

Now, how much was that CMoH?

PK

You're all labouring under the mistaken impression that our politicians have the people's best interests at heart. Debate does not work. It is a waste of energy. We need to start thinking seriously about the people who are telling us what to do. These are the wankers none of us wanted to talk to at school, usually for bloody good reasons, and now they're cracking the whip. People ask me why I always look so grim when riding my motorbikes. It's very simple: I am wary of looking as if I am having a good time because I know some superannuated c**t will want to legislate it out of existence if he sees me enjoying myself. That's what this is: the meek have inherited the earth and they're finding all sorts of ways of imposing misery on people. We really need to start thinking about killing these people. Killing them is really the only sensible thing to do. Think I'm being extreme? I'm not. I'm telling it how it is. The West needs a serious shake-up. Here we have tossers spending our money on "make-work" legislation while our society is on its way to Hell in a wheelbarrow with a crooked wheel. We wish to remember and render homage to men who fought for us but these people wish to prevent education, pride in our past and anything else that stands in their way of their agenda, which is to wreck Western society.

Rant over...

PK

Hallo!

PK

(Jackeen)

The officer who recommended the EK1 for AH was Leutnant Hugo Gutmann. Check out this webpage for some interesting information: http://holocaust-info.dk/shm/2_uk.htm. It gives some interesting information although, being somewhat partisan in nature, seeks to downplay Hitler's entitlement to the EK1.

Hugo Gutmann was Hitler's immediate superior officer from January 29 to August 31, 1918. His military papers have been preserved, and they tell that he was born on November 19, 1880 in Nuremberg as the son of the shop-keeper Salomon Gutmann and his wife Emma. He himself stated his religion as Jewish. In 1902 he volunteered for the army and was appointed non-commissioned officer, before he in 1904 was transferred to the reserve. At the outbreak of war in 1914 Hugo Gutmann was called up and soon after he was transferred to Regiment List. On April 15, 1915, he was promoted to lieutenant, and after that he acted as adjudant for the regiment's artillery battalion. On the same day as Hitler received his Iron Cross, the regimental commander, Freiherr von Tubeuf, wrote a recommendation on Gutmann which shows his energy as a front officer. Gutmann was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class on December 2, 1914 - incidentally the same day as Hitler - and the Iron Cross 1st class on December 4, 1915.

Hugo Gutmann was still unmarried when, at the age of 38, he was demobilized on February 8, 1919. He married the year after and his wife later bore two children. Late in 1933 he asked the Bavarian War Archives for a copy of his military papers - probably in order to take advantage of President Hindenburg's stubborn defence of the civil rights of the Jewish war veterans. Hugo Gutmann at that time owned an office-furniture shop in Vordere Steingasse 3 in Nuremberg. Together with his family he escaped in 1939 to Belgium, and in 1940 he came to the United States, where he changed his name to Henry G. Grant. According to the historian Werner Maser, he received - by Hitler's intervention - a pension from the Third Reich down to the end of the war.

PK

Sorry to muscle in for a moment on an EK1 thread but having studied the magnificent Wagner EK1 posted just above by Marshall, I think this EK2 must be by Wagner as well. I have always considered this cross to be an example made between c.1895 - c.1915 because of its overall 1914 look. So, is this EK1 from the same time frame or have I been mistaken?

PK

Darrell's cross is actually a really nice wartime example and quite rarely seen. The examples one sees far more often are postwar, like the one offered by Niemann. $80.00 is high for something that was churned out by the bucketful for the collectors' market from the 1960s to the 1990s. I'd pay maybe $30.00 tops for a postwar version if I wanted one. For a wartime example? Well, it's true that Italian stuff doesn't command high prices but it would be worth more to me than a 1939 EKII, that's sure. That said, Darrell's example has damaged enamel with clumsy touch-up attempts so that would bring the price back down. As a damaged medal, it is worth whatever someone is prepared to pay for it. I would not turn my nose up at it, although I might see about removing the modeller's enamel or whatever some fool used to try to fill in the dinks.

PK

I have a pic of the reverse side on my EK but hesitate to show it as it may violate some copyright.

It won't violate any copyright. This is a free website and, in any case, you'd be posting the image for the purposes of sharing information so it would certainly fall under the 'fair use' proviso contained in copyright legislation.

In any event I am still happy with my purchase.

Rod

The debate about 1870 EK1 by Wagner notwithstanding, you bought a cross widely accepted as an original piece, published as a benchmark example in one of the acclaimed reference works on the Iron Cross. If the cross is OK, then you have to take the view that you paid tomorrow's price to have something special today.

PK

How about a BSA M20 500cc motorcycle in the hands of members of I./Fallschirmj?ger-Rgt 2 after the capture of Leros in November 1943?

PK

I don't want to rain on anyone's parade but the group seems to have been incomplete and some of the awards had been added. The silver badge was genuine, of course, and so were the documents. So was the aluminium badge although the case looked like a copy. Some documents that Haug would surely have had were missing and a couple of people have mentioned that other pieces were not with the group when it came out of the family. Don't know how true that is. It's still a cracking group but not worth ?46,000.00, plus the 20% commission. The guy will be lucky to see his money back if he ever needs to move it on. The market for this stuff is very, very limited. Perhaps half a dozen potential buyers in the world at most. It's like SS-FJ groups.

PK

The Haug group estimated at ?12,500.00 in the Hermann Historica auction that just took placed realised ?46,000.00. The group included Haug's .800 silver Type 2 Army Para Badge and a cased, worn aluminium example. That's ?46,000.00 plus 20% fees. Maybe I should think about reinsuring some of my FJ groups, including the Scheu SS-FJ lot. Jesus! The world has gone mad. The buyer must have really, really wanted the Haug group because it wasn't even complete.

PK

Amazing that people go to the trouble of forging documents that are good enough to catch out the unwary but don't bother doing simple research as described by Chris in checking the date of capitulation in Togo! I see this in WW2 documents as well. Was offered an 'improved' Fallschirmj?ger group with an EK1 document recently, handsigned by an RKT who simply wasn't anywhere near that location on or even around the date of issue...because he had been dead for three months. Would have bought it for the genuine docs had the bandit not wrecked the soldbuch by adding the EK1 entry. Well-executed signature, nonetheless!

PK

You should buy a cell phone with a better camera. But yes, it appears to conform to the type of cross associated with Ernst L Muller of Pforzheim. Hard to be definite with these images but it's probably a '76'.

PK

The fact that you didn't pay much to begin with should have rung warning bells. No such thing as a free lunch where dealers are concerned.

PK

Oleg Borisovich Alekseev ? Managing Director for Corporate Projects, Institute of Corporate Development.

http://www.sual.com/news/?id=387

Could this be the chap?

PK

Or maybe not at all... In the same league, I think, as G?ring's onyx-centered Grand Crosses of the Iron Cross 1939 in their silver box?

PK

I woud want to examine the bronze plaque fitted into that case very, very closely before thinking about making a bid of more than ?4.500,00 for a decoration said to have been given to P?tain by his staff in 1926.

PK