PKeating

I agree that it is a photograph. I think the term we're looking for here is 'half-tone'. Here it is again, alongside the pictures Jacques posted of Shickle-style badges.

These certainly look the same as the Schickle badge in the catalogue page posted by Gordon and the badge worn in the photo above. The deathheads are the same.

Below is Jacques' picture, in half-tones.

PK

Well, Gordon, I'd say the badge this tanker is wearing came from Otto Schickle. It is clearly the same as the badge in the catalogue.

PK

Well, Gordon, I'd say the badge this tanker is wearing came from Otto Schickle.

And here, borrowed from another thread on GMIC, is a Wernstein PKA with a hinge and pin assembly that looks very like that on the 1939 badge as awarded to Paul Z?ndorf. I know that firms bought in hinge and pin assemblies but this is such an 'un-German', Iberian set-up that I think it's not unreasonable to wonder if it came from stock left over from the production of the Condor Legion Tank Badge and to suggest that the award badges were made by Hermann Wernstein.

PK

Prosper, have you been able to identify any of these badges to any manufacturer's catalogs such as the Otto Schickel catalog that Gorden identified?

Well, only two of the badges I have posted are originals. The others are either fakes or questionable. I don't think any of them conform to the image in the wartime Otto Schickle catalogue. In any case, as I said, the images in period catalogues are either drawings or retouched photographs so while they serve as a rough guide, they do not constitute proof for the purposes of authentication because they are simply not of sufficiently high fidelity to absolutely sure. It is rather like trying to identify or, rather, authenticate something using the Dr Doehle book. However, I would say that I am inclined to believe that your badge is indeed an original wartime variant by Otto Schickle. Other variants certainly existed, as wartime photographs in this thread show, but with the level of skill and effort that has evidently been put into producing fakes of this badge, fakers have obviously referred to period photographs to produce quite convincing items. It is a tricky subject and my advice to inexperienced potential buyers is to stick to badges that are accepted without question - by serious students of the subject and by dint of provenance, I hasten to add - as either textbook Lisbon pieces or 1939 award pieces. Pay the price and enjoy peace of mind because the minute you have to start justifying something to the peanut gallery, it's always going to be hard to move it on and recoup your money.

PK

The reverse. Close...but no banana! Note particularly the hinge assembly: the base is too small so the cutout is redundant. There are plenty of other differences but you can have fun spotting them.

Comparison of a known original (the Z?ndorf badge) and a dangerous fake of it, offered a while ago by an American dealer.

PK

More Z?ndorf...

Z?ndorf's nachla? was broken up by Kai Winkler. I heard that there was more than one badge but the one I have shown is the type awarded before the parade in Berlin in June 1939. It could be by Hermann Wernstein as a very similar hinge and pin assembly has been seen on this maker's Panzerkampfabzeichen. That said, the hinge and pin assembly appears to be a copy of the set-up on the second pattern Lisbon badges, which is logical as the German firm was probably lent a Lisbon badge and told to copy it. Here is another photo of Z?ndorf. I enjoyed owning this badge but swapped it for something I just could not refuse!

PK

And here is the badge received by Paul Z?ndorf during the award ceremony in Berlin in 1939. This is the type of badge over which hangs no question mark.

PK

Here is a badge that is believed by some to be a 1960s reproduction and by others, usually those who have paid hefty prices for one, to be an original wartime badge made by some German firm for retail sale to recipients. I have always felt the sloppy finishing evident in the haphazard filing of the die flashing to be atypical of prewar and wartime German badge manufacture. Look at the eye sockets. But some people pay high prices for these...although nowhere near as much as for examples that correspond exactly to the type accepted as being from the stock awarded to eligible veterans in the summer of 1939 and through 1940 and 1941.

PK

This is generally accepted as being a Lisbon-made badge, albeit in bad condition, worn by Heinz-Theo Neumann. The pin is clearly a wartime repair job. But this bears a close resemblance to the badges worn by the officers and NCOs in the photos taken in Spain, which must by definition be the 'in-theatre' badges commissioned by von Thoma from the Lisbon firm.

I'd only trust the original Portuguese-made badges - which are ultra-rare - and the German-made type as distributed to members of the Condor Legion's armoured element after their return to Germany in 1939, when the unofficial badge conceived by Ritter von Thoma was accorded official status by OKW and the tankers received certificates and at least one badge each.

I accept that Schickle made retail versions of the badge or, at least, planned to and would be prepared to accept that other makers might have included the badge on their lists but the kind of image like the one from the catalogue shown here is simply not detailed enough to be able to tell if a badge that looks like it is, in fact, identical.

The same applies to the photo of the reipcient posted by Jacques. We can see that he wears a type of badge seen on the market but a definitive comparison between the badge in the photo and a badge in the hand, so to speak, is simply impossible. Anyone could hold up high end fakes resembling the badges in the catalogue image and the photo and claim them to be the same but they could not prove it beyond reasonable doubt.

The Condor Legion Tank Badge has been extensively and convincingly faked since the 1950s. Furthermore, some of the better fakes or repros might be legitimate post-WW2 copies made for veterans, either for retail or to order by the veterans' associations. Unless one of these badges is identical to known originals of the Lisbon or 1939 award pieces, then I am afraid that there will always be a doubt.

PK

Obverse view, for those of you who might want the pics for reference.

Like Bill Garvy, I must confess to never having really registered this aspect of concave and convex oakleaves...and I have been collecting the Iron Cross since I was a nipper! I suppose I must have noticed it but it just didn't register. Thank you for awakening me to something new! There you go! I learned something really valuable today here on GMIC! Just goes to show that there's always something new to learn, doesn't it? Here's an early issue 1870 with one "innie" and two "outies". I haven't scanned any of my other 1870s, except for obverse views but I'm just chucking this one in here because it's from the 1870s.

PK

Ah yes, excuse me, you don't in fact rely on the bin theory at all. My apologies. Quite the contrary in fact. You call is a far-fetched theory. I can see how you arrive at the conclusion that there were two different sets of frame die. It's a reasonable conclusion when one studies the various flaws. I am intrigued, though, by the fact that the dies appear to have been identical. When one studies various parts of the beading, particualarly in the corners, it can be seen that if one die is different from the other, then it's an identical twin, flaws aside.

Some pundits would attribute this to the existence of a 'mother die' from which the dies were made but no die-cutter I have ever asked was able to confirm such a method. So what we have is a die-cutter who was able to make, to all intents and purposes, identical copies of what one would call the Type A frame dies. Or perhaps he just made the top die. But he managed to reproduce various aspects of the beading to an astonishing degree of exactness.

How about the theory, proposed by some in the past, that the flaws sometimes differ slightly because of the way in which the top die might have been mounted on the press? The die would have been clamped in position, the clamp being secured by high tensile bolts bearing on the reverse of the clamp blocks. If the machinist tooling up the press tightened the bolts manually, without the aid of a torque wrench (and why should he use a torque wrench when the twist of a hand on an 8" wrench (spanner) can exert a ton or more of pressure?), the pressure bearing on the die would have affected the cracks.

Do you see what I mean? Let's say that you have a rectangular top die, fitted into the adjustable clamp system on the press, with four clamp blocks, each secured by two bolts for evenness of pressure. Then you also have a block behind the die, held by an adjustable pillar, which is screwed down to bring pressure to bear on the reverse of the die, thereby steadying and reinforcing it. All of these factors would cause the cracks in the die to open and close to varying degrees, depending on how much pressure were bearing on the die and whence the pressure was coming. Same die, same cracks, worsening over time but varying slightly with each production run because of (a) the pressure factors and (b) the enlargement of the cracks over time.

Of course, this still doesn't explain to me why there are 1957 pattern S&L KCs with unflawed frames. In the case of early S&L 1957 KCs with non-silver frames, I believe that the LDO insisted upon the surrender of all KCs and components not conforming to LDO regulations by the firms they licenced to produce the award when the retail sale of the KC was eventually forbidden. Firms might have retained some bits and pieces but would a firm like S&L have had enough of these illegal non-silver KC frames in stock twelve years after the war to produce a production run of unflawed 1957 pattern KCs? Regarding 800 silver S&L KCs with 1957 cores and unflawed frames, would S&L have been able to keep any precious or semi-precious metal in stock after the capitulation?

Furthermore, if we accept that there were two sets of frames dies, one a perfect copy of the other, right down to its tendency to crack, then this begs the question as to why a firm that clearly produced KCs with flaws on the beading, which made it past LDO inspectors, bothered to go to the trouble of making a second set of dies when the PKF and the LDO were accepting the crosses made on the flawed dies.

PK

Thanks for sending me the article, Dietrich. It's a well-written, well laid-out piece and certainly merits consideration as a serious thesis. I will read and digest it but in the meantime, how sure are you that Steinhauer & L?ck had a large parts bin into which KC frame stampings were thrown, thus forming strata by which one could estimate the date of manufacture as if by taking a core sample from, for example, glacier ice? And wouldn't anything made of silver and found on government or commercial premises have been impounded by the British when they captured the town of Ludenscheid? Or perhaps stolen by soldiers? Or by Germans?

PK

I know the management here shan't mind if I tell you that a couple of our moderators, who are members here too, have been building a 1914 EK2 database: http://www.militariacollecting.com/index.php?showforum=313.

PK

I am quite sure that thinking about buying a CMoH doesn't become an offence or part thereof until one has actually made or attempted to make the puchase, in which case the forethought is deemed to be premeditation, thus aggravating the crime. Of course, our leaders are introducing thought policing by the back door so you might well find yourself hauled away in the future, Rick, for thinking about buying one.

Should one spend several hours at the bar, on the other hand, get gloriously and hopelessly drunk and then buy a CMoH on pure impulse from a bloke in a dirty macintosh who looms from the shadows, would one be able to plead 'diminished responsibility' in mitigation?

An earlier point is interesting, in that one could perhaps buy some stuff and receive the CMoH as a gift. You buy the frame or box for several grand and the medal is thrown in FOC. I expect that a hostile judge might stomp on that defence but assuming one were before a non-partisan or even deeply bored judge, who wants the case off the books so that he can try the rapists, mass-murderers and other real criminals, would the gift ploy work?

Daft...

PK

How horrible for the victim of the theft. The perpetrator was probably commissioned to carry out the burglary by a dealer or a collector.

PK

So this is a "Type B fake"?

And this is an original Type A?

If you read my article you will see that there is a difference between the pre 45 flaw pattern and the post 57 flaw pattern. They are not the same and therefore cannot be treated the same. And this is not a theory it's a physical fact. However, the romantics in the collection community have sometimes a huge prpoblem with physics.

There is indeed a difference between the flaw patterns on early and late flawed S&L KCs. As the cracks in the dies grew larger, their signature on the beading changed. Equally, that is not a theory, it's a physical fact, to borrow your words.

Now, maybe I am going blind but I really cannot see any flaws on the beading of what you describe as the Type B fake, reproduced above. I can quite clearly see flaws on what you describe as the Type A cross. You contend that this Type B cross is a postwar fake. What would you say to the suggestion that it could be a pre-March 1941 cross, made by Steinhauer & L?ck before the LDO outlawed the use of anything but iron and silver in KC manufacture?

The frames share so many features that it is reasonable to say that they were struck on the same dies. So, the Type A above, with visible flaws, would postdate the Type B. musn't it? Or, at least, its frame halves must postdate its earlier unflawed or less flawed counterparts?

Of course, I haven't seen your article yet and I look forward to reading it. I would also like to see where the flaws occur on the Type B cross pictured above.

PK

Dietrich,

I can't comment until I have read your article so could you direct me to it?

PK

Seriously though, does this new law make any allowances for cinema, television and theatre and other legitimate forms of reenactment? Would a film costumier even be allowed to possess some CMoH and other awards for wear by people who had not earned them? The whole thing is batty. As Rick says, and as I knew, there are already laws in force to deal with poseurs and frauds. It's just a question of enforcing them. My point was that reinforcing these laws could be done simply by writing a new law or amendment in plain English. It would be two to three lines long, clear and unequivocal. But then, if laws were clear and unequivocal, lawyers and politicians - often one and the same animal these days - wouldn't make so much money conceiving, drafting, debating and enforcing them, would they?

PK

How sure are you that those were actually S&L dies? Was there are company mark on it or could you identify the beading?

As I said, I did not closely examine them and would not have known one set of dies from another according to the identity of the firm that used them in any case as the 'science' back then of identifying the manufacturer of one cross as opposed to another really wasn't as precise as it is today. People didn't really take notice of such considerations; a KC was a KC...which is why it was easier for certain dealers to sell convincing fakes and repops to punters.

I knew they were Steinhauer & L?ck dies becaiuse the funny little man who had them in his bag said they Steinhauer & L?ck KC dies and because Jeff Hurst and I went to that Greek taverna in East London, to the north of Clerkenwell, near the Old Street roundabout, for the specific purpose of meeting this man who was brokering these dies. He had other dies too but that's irrelevant here.

I do however recall the cracks in the dies in positions corresponding to what I now know to be the beading at the 9-o-clock and 3-o-clock positions of the S&L KC arms.

I actually do not agree. There are ways at least to identify the early type and under the safe assumption of soem solid precendence I would buy a flawed A-Type any time without hesitation. And I would NOT buy a FLAWED B-Type.

But the S&L debate is more driven by other things then pure rational.

I disagree. My viewpoint that any 1939 pattern KC by Steinhauer & L?ck displaying die flaws to the beading on the horizontal arms is based on simple rationale: there are 1957 pattern S&L KCs without flaws and there are 1957 pattern S&L KCs with flaws, so it is rational to conclude that the dies were damaged after the commencement of production by Steinhauer & L?ck of 1957 pattern KCs.

Your A-Type and B-Type argument is a convincing one and might be true but you cannot prove it anymore than anyone can prove that a set of Godet EL or ELS was made in the 1940s or the 1960s. All this stuff one hears about "ways of identifying the wartime examples" and how the guardians of this information cannot divulge it because it would help fakers does not convince me because I know too much about the fakery and forgery industry.

It could well be the case that Steinhauer & L?ck had a stock of 800 silver frame stampings with flaws in storage since before the end of the war, which they used up to produce illegal Nazi pattern KCs from the late 1940s up until the point at which they exhausted this stock of frame stampings.

If that is the case, then that would make the frames wartime pieces and perhaps even the cores if one applies the same theory. But the resultant KC would still not be a genuine example of the award. It would be a postwar copy assembled by the makers from bits and pieces.

I regret to say that once it becomes apparent that a German or Austrian firm has been using original wartime tooling to produce Nazi pattern medals and badges "for collectors", then I tend to be wary of the medals and badges in question.

Of course, the differences between some firms' wartime and postwar products is quite obvious, as in the case of the Viennese firm Souval. But when dealing with firms like Godet and Steinhauer & L?ck and their output back in the 1950s and 1960s, when they still used the techniques and methods of the 1930s and 1940s - as well as the same artisans and personnel before they got too old - then there is a serious problem.

Eveb if you show me a perfect, unflawed 1939 pattern KC by Steinhauer & L?ck, all I can tell myself, I am afraid, is that it predates the point at which the frame dies became damaged in the late 1950s. I would need to see an example with, for instance, damage to the finish of the core that showed up in original wartime photographs of the recipient before I would be convinced that the cross was likely to be a wartime one. The same applies, by the way, to Klein & Quenzer KCs, as far as I am concerned.

Anyway, if we take the cross below, a handsome Steinhauer & L?ck KC whose current owner swears by the story that it came from the estate of a French veteran of the 2 DB who brought it home at the end of the war, one can see slight flaws on the beading, indicating that the frame halves of this cross were struck on the dies comparitively soon after the damage happened, before it worsened.

Now, I know this cross personally and it is a lovely object. I would love to be assured that it is a wartime cross. But those flaws raise doubts in my mind that your arguments, well-reasoned though they are, have not dispelled.

As things stand, one can put a 1957 pattern cross without flaws on the table beside this beautiful cross and the conclusion must be that the 1939 pattern cross postdates the 1957 pattern cross, unless we believe that both frames came from a stock that survived the turbulent years of the immediate postwar era safe and sound in the firm's stores.

In the case of silver frames, to relate back to Mr Bean's earlier point, I think it improbable that a German firm would have hung onto any precious or semi-precious metals in the immediate postwar years. If not confiscated by the occupying powers, the management of the firm would probably have sold the metal on the black market, especially in the days or weeks after the total devaluation of the mark in 1949 as part of the process of building the New Germany. Either that or an employee would have stolen it!

I have examined an unflawed 1957 pattern cross whose frames were not made of silver. Given the LDO's unequivocal order early in 1941 outlawing KCs made of anything but iron and silver, does this mean that S&L kept a stock of non-silver KC frames from 1939 and 1940 and trotted them out in 1957 to make these unflawed 1957 pattern crosses? How come they did not use them all up making 1939 pattern crosses between 1946 and 1957?

It's all a question of possibility versus probability, isn't it? In order to believe in flawed 1939 pattern KCs by S&L, we are being asked to believe in a series of relatively numerous improbables. So, Dietrich, how would you classify the cross posted below?

PK

Problem is that date of assembly of the components doesn't necessarily equate with the date of their manufacture.

Very true. So, really, if we're honest about it, there is actually no practical way of resolving this debate! LOL! However, sometimes we shouldn't let the practicalities get in the way of a good debate. Joking aside, I think it's pretty clear that some good-looking S&L KCs may not be of wartime manufacture but I don't think any of us can actually prove anything! I know I can't!

P

George,

I'll try to answer your question as fully as I can. As I recall the occasion, the potential buyer hemmed and hawed because of the fissures in the "female" frame die and said he would get back to the vendor or, rather, the go-between who brought the dies to London. I saw the frame dies on the table of the restaurant but did not examine them myself. I glimpsed the dies for a KC core but not up close. So, I presume that the frame dies had not been the object of any repair work, hence Jeff Hurst's reticence.

PK