Tim Tezer

Gordon, Any possibility of getting scans of the pictures frm the article? I don't want to violate any copyrights, of course, but I don't get his magazine. My wife says I already get too many journals and auction catalogs in the mail. But because I'm a man and she's a woman, naturally I have no idea what she's talkin about. Tim

Dave, Any idea when the picture of the Grandfather was taken? Also, can we get a closer look at the St. George? It looks like it's white enamelled, which of course a Cross of St. George 4th class (for enlisted men) would NOT be. Maybe he later received the Order of St. George as an officer? Tim

No doubt there are slight differences in the overall profile of the eagles around the neck and head, as well as the legs and tail feathers. I have attributed these to hand-finishing. Bear in mind that the eagles we're looking at are about the size of your average mosquito, and are hand-finished with a jeweler's file. Different artisans are going to do slightly different things when they finish them, and if the dies were worn out in the post-war pieces, they would have had to do considerably more work to make them look decent. Tim

I hope to be able to do exactly that at some point, so of course I will be archiving the photos of this one. The really hard thing is to find any that have a known history, so that you can pinpoint a date. That's not likely to happen, but I may be able to come up with enough photos of "transitional" pieces to put together a collage showing how the dies deteriorated over time. Tim

I'll admit, it's difficult to put a date on it, and I know there will be some who would just as soon stay away from a piece that isn't made EXACTLY the way they were made pre-1918. For that reason, the price I'm shooting for is a shot in the dark, but you can't fault me for trying. After all, the bonafide pre-1919 pieces marked for .938 silver content etc. are fetching upwards of $12,000 today. As Wagner was not an official maker of awards during the 3rd Reich era (at least after the creation of the LDO in 1941), it would appear that they stopped making awards some time in the 1930's (although they were still in business and made Luftwaffe Honor Goblets). If we assume they didn't produce very many PLMs - for the same reason we're all pretty skeptical about post-war PLMs: there was very little demand - then it seems unlikely they would have had to keep producing them over a period of time. So it seems logical to me that they would have been made in the 1920's. I bought this piece from a prominent German dealer who presented it as "circa 1925". My intention was to use it as a trade item, but the deals I had hoped for didn't materialize, so I'm selling it. I certainly don't mean to misrepresent it, but I think I've done my homework pretty well on this one. It may not be the best example on the market, but it's a far sight better than most. Tim

Well, since I'm the one who's selling it, there' no point in giving my opinion, but In case it doesn't sell I'm curious to hear people's feedback. Darrell - are you suggesting that the price is too low? I am NOT offering it as a wartime issued piece, so I can't really justify asking more than that for it. If somebody wants to pay me more, that's OK by me.... Brian - a ribbon is just a ribbon. If the buyer wants a period ribbon, I can get one for him. Tim

I thought it looked perfectly right, but appearances can be deceiving! Many thanks for the replies. Tim

I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on this GSM 1918-1962, with 'Malaya' bar. Instead of being impressed with a name on the edge, it says "COLLECTORS ITEM" in impressed block letters. It appears to me to be a completely original medal, but I am sure there are copies circulating. Has anyone seen a similarly marked British medal, and is it original?

Jim, I see nobody has responded to your question for some time, which is kind of unfortunate. Personally I don't think that there were truly accurate copies of Russian awards made until about 10 years ago. Now there are some really dangerous fakes out there, not only in bronze gilt but in real gold. Most of the bronze gilt pieces I've seen - and that includes what I believe are originals as well as reproductions - are not maker marked at all, except for St. Stanislaus badges made by Dmitri Ossipov. Do you have any photos of the raised makers marks to post on the forum? Tim

Yeah, the crosshatching on the eagles is one feature that stands out on the 2nd and 3rd examples I posted. Curiously, the cover of Klietmann's "Pour le Merite und Tapferkeitsmedaille" shows what appears to be a gold PLM, with crosshatching on the breasts of the eagles. But in the two shown above, I think the crosshatching was done after striking to try and get some of the detail back into the eagles. On #2, there is additional chasing to the tail feathers, which makes it hard to see the details of the die characteristics, but there is enough there to see that the tail feathers are formed exactly the same way on all three. I think it's an interesting study of the wear on the dies. Clearly Wagner didn't think it was worth the investment to make a new die, when they probably produced only a handful of these. Tim

and the third, unmarked cross:

The second one (800 silver, W mark):

Here is the reverse of the firs one:

I don't think that's the WORST copy I've ever seen..... ...which brings me around to clarify the original point of this thread: many pieces have been passed off as being post-1918 "jewelers copies". In today's market of extremely high quality fakes, we have polarized to either be paraniod about anything that doesn't 100% meet our requirements for originality, or too lax and willing to accept someone's opinion about the origin of an item. All I am proposing is that post-war copies were made by Wagner, as well as Godet. (Post-war examples of Godet PLMs are already an accepted fact in the collecting community). I think the photographic evidence is pretty strong. To Brian's point, I cannot say with 100% certainty that these pieces were made by Wagner, as that would be impossible. However, the first example shown bears all the characteristics of a textbook example of a type that is commonly believed to be absolutely original and made either by Friedlander or Wagner (nobody has been able to discern any visible difference between the two makers, as far as I know). The second and third examples, as far as I'm concerned, show sufficient similarity in the details of the eagle to conclude that either they were made from the same die or they were produced by someone who was willing to destroy an original in order to produce an exact copy of the original die. This last hypothesis doesn't hold water. There would be no reason for someone to go to such lengths, when he could merely purchase one of the Spanish copies and sell it on Ebay for $13,000 (Yes, this really happened!) I will provide additional photos showing the reverse of all three of these examples. TIm

The third PLM is very much like the second, but completely unmarked. Although there are differences between all of these PLM's, the eagles are close enough that I am convinced they are all from the same dies. So, if anyone says there is no such thing as a REAL post-1918 wearer's copy, I beg to differ.

The second photo shows a PLM which I believe dates from around the early 1920's. It is stamped "W" on the bottom arm of the cross, and "800" on the reverse of the suspension loop. Notice that the eagles have been hand-chased, apparently to make up for detail lost due to die wear.

I am kind of importing this topic from the Wehrmacht Awards Forum, but alas - it's down for service, and I've got control of the computer, so I'm going for it. There has been discussion on the WAF and all over the place about the number of Pour le Merite copies that pass themselves off as 1920's and 1930's copies. That claim is usually the first refuge of an unscrupulous seller trying to pass of an outright modern fake. However, there is no reason to believe that official manufacturers - particularly Wagner and Godet - didn't offer Pour le Merite badges for sale in their shops. To that end, here are detail photos of the eagles of three different PLM's, two of which are almost certainly post-1918 copies, but made the primary original manufacturer: Johann Wagner & Sohne of Berlin. First, a typical WW1 era example, this one with no maker's mark, but a "938" silver content mark.

Some interesting items, indeed. The 1870 EK1 is definitely not an awarded type, but may be a 19th Century copy. As for the HHO member's cross with swords, this example may be pre-1945, but is definitely not an awarded example, either. There are supposed to be pieces made by C.E. Juncker during the 3rd Reich era, and this may be one of those. Tim

This thread has produced a lot of fascinating stuff for me, especially as I never spent much time studying Turkish Republic badges. This is clearly modeled after a WW1 pilot's badge, and the inscription at the top of the badge where the tughra would have been says "TC (Turkish Republic) - In memory of 10 years". Taken by itself, I would have thought the badge was simply a one-off, but the document tells a much bigger story. The document is a graduation diploma from the Eskişehir aviation school. What they have done in this case is scratch out the usual wording and written in that this is a special award in recognition of 10 years' service, to a "Tecnik?i" or technician, who probably was an employee of the aviation school. That confirms that the badge is probably one of a kind. But that's not all! The badge depicted on the diploma is - one would presume - something that was awarded to graduates of the aviation school. Obviously it is also modeled after the Ottoman pilot's badge, but with the foundation date of the empire removed, and the "TC" or Turkish Republic cypher added at the top. This confirms that such badges were used by the Republic after 1928. So the badge that Steve French sent me photos of (which I posted on this thread back in January) probably was a transitional Turkish Republic pilot badge dating from some time between the establishment of the Republic in 1923 and the change to Latin writing at the end of 1928. Tim

I've seen a few of this type, and I owned one at one time. I couldn't say whether they are Turkish or German made, as the tughra mark on the back has nothing to do with the manufacturer, other than showing that careless workers were employed in their shop. One of these was pictured in an OMSA journal article once with a mention of the tughra stamp on the back, but that's not what we're seeing. If you look closely at the tughra on the back, you will notice it is in fact reversed - a mirror image. This is the result of what coin collectors refer to as "die clash". It means the die, which had both obverse and reverse elements, was operated without a metal blank in it. The result is that the reverse die was impressed with part of the design from the obverse, producing the faint tughra that appears on the back. I guess because the only visible damage was to the reverse die, they figured it didn't matter. Tim

It does appear that there are swords on both the Mejidie Grand Cross set and the Osmanie 2nd class set. Not many of those around!!! An absolutely fantastic group! Tim

The Lauer EK1 that Biro shows is the type I'm more familiar with, but I've seen a couple of those "wide pin" versions. The core details look pretty close between the two: notice the slightly right-leaning "1" in "1813". It's possible that Lauer made two types of pin fastener systems, at different times. Tim

If anyone on the forum owns the MC group awarded to Lt. Tom Bowker, Machine Gun Corps, please send me a private message. I have information regarding this group. Cheers, Tim

Joe, Which book has this info in it? Not that I have any space left on my bookshelf, but if it's worth having, I might be able squeeze the books in a little tighter. Tim

The Article by Peter Sauerwald and Claus Zimmerling that was published in the BDOS journal a few years ago didn't really shed any light on the issue, except to charge that a host of these spanges out there are actually fakes. That is entirely possible, and I can't say that I can sort out the confusion myself, but I certainly wouldn't take all of the authors' contentions at face value. First of all, they illustrate an example as "original" that has no beading on the frame of the Iron Cross, which as PK has pointed out is - well, highly unusual. Secondly, the article seems to imply that there is only ONE original type, which to me is patently false. It's my understanding (from Freidhelm Heyde's book) that there were no issued examples at all; recipients only got a document giving them authorization to wear it. What's more, the vast majority of those recipients would have had their medals mounted on a parade bar, necessitating a prong-mounted spange, rather than one with a slide. Jorg Nimmergut's book implies that "originals" all had a slide, and prong-backed pieces were private purchase, but that statement is meaningless if we accept the Freidhelm Heyde/Max Aurich contention that they were ALL private purchase. Am I making a mistaken assumption? Were there really any "awarded" examples, or were they all private purchase by definition? Tim