Luftmensch
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Fascinating--Poperinghe! We are used to see big cities and important strategic targets on these Tors, but "Pops" was a very important rail centre, and gateway to the whole Ypres Salient. So it was a very important strategic target. As Alex says, it was the rarest of the rare that the Urkunde is still together with the Becher. I heard there are owners of one but not the other staring each other down and nobody wants to be the first to sell! Congratulations! -
Thanks, Vince! I know someone who bought an oval patch from a family years ago. He asked what else they had and they said the patch was attached to a tunic that was falling apart so they cut it off! We all would have taken the tunic anyway. This tunic has a couple ...I was going to say moth bites...but they look more like snake bites! Maybe because this fellow was in at the end his tunic survived. There are some very clean Paradejacke around but this was his working coat.
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Thanks, Alex!
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Thank you, Alex. Thank you, Erik. There is a label sewn in crooked by the collar that says "Eisenhöfer". I don't know what this is. Alex, do you want me to scan all the entries in the MP from 1899, or just the Luftschiffer entries?
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Hi, Alex Here is the tunic that I got out of an old collection...in Texas! Rgds
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Simi "generally" makes sense? Well Simi's redoubled plea to be the authority here makes me wonder about the particular cases in which he hasn't made sense.... Gentlemen, in the annals of wasted time, our correspondence on these two threads has been possibly the least productive time I've ever spent. A long life to you all.
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Rotary engraving...you mean like this? Rotary engraving can be spotted a mile away. I would suggest you have the badge in hand before you go all forensic on us. If anyone out there has the guts to take a dremel tool to a delicate original badge like this then he deserves a medal for bravery...and a strait jacket for stupidity.
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Tifes, you said: During WWI, he served as a navigator in an airship of the French Air Force. So he would have been trained and qualified to wear the French Balloon brevet. Nothing to verify, unless your information is incorrect. The Austrian equivalent badge for that rate is the Luftfahrerabz. So there is a tenuous link. By the way, "...obviously his biography didn’t count “helmsmanship on the airship” as flying job. Nothing more and nothing less..." I suggest if you meet a veteran who served on a bomber as a navigator, bomb aimer, radio operator, air gunner or just "turned a wheel" you don't tell him he didn't fly in the war...
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No, Sandro, but maybe an Austrian Luftschiffer had a postwar association with a French airshipper, who also happened to be a white Russian. I have insignia in my collection from Luftschiffer Vereine that had contact with friends and former enemies who were also airshippers. They visited and socialised--yes, socialised with an "s"--drank much beer and occasionally exchanged gifts. As for 1908...we may never be able to satisfy your desire to tie all data points into a neat little package!
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The Shroud of Turin? You're keeping an open mind? You don't know? It's a stretch? I'm simply fascinated by the subtle and shifting ways you express your objectivity, Sandro. "...he simply spun the rudder on the airship. No pilot's test was required for that." Airship steersmen had to train and qualify for their rating. The French had an airship badge for this. Question--what Austrian badge or distinctive did a steersman/observer on an airship qualify to wear? The Luftfahrerabz.?
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I'm impressed with your spelling ability. You said: "...concluding that the engraving is original seems a stretch. And this wouldn’t be the first original item that has been embellished to enhance its market value." Leaving poor Occam out of it, I ask that you please show us another original Luftfahrerabz. embellished to enhance its market value. If you can't, to which original items are you referring that you think are germane to this discussion? If you can't show us these, then why is "concluding that the engraving is original...a stretch"? On what do you base your opinion? Poor Occam again? Did he collect Austrian badges? And in the absence of anything but your open-minded negative bias, I think the very existence of this fascinating badge tips the scales.
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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You cite Occam's rasor and yet no one can show me in...what...several centuries? of accumulated experience on this thread one other example of this phantom faker who professionally engraves rare badges with obscure but bogus engravings? This discussion is beyond this badge, it's about the inclination of us, given the number of fakes out there, to judge everything we don't understand as fake. You know what would impress the heck out of me, beyond your superior knowledge in Austro-Hungarian badges, is to hear you say, simply.... "I don't know."
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I repeat: he might have used Russian AFTER the war as a courtesy, if that was Popov's language. Also, if anyone believes Occam's Rasor / the simplest explanation is that this was made to deceive, then show me ONE OTHER original Luftfahrerabz. with a quality engraving that is demonstrably fake. ONE OTHER....
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Originality of badge is proven. The quality of the engraving suggests it was not done recently. In my 40 years of collecting I've never seen fakers adding quality old-world engraving to original badges. Especially one in obscure Russian to obscure personages. There are easier ways to make a profit. Given a choice between saying this is an attempt to deceive OR this is an authentic presentation piece we don't yet understand, I vote for the latter.
