Tim Tezer

One thing worth mentioning: beware of Juncker cases with purple linings. They are reproduced and sold by Muller cases in the UK, and I have often seen them paired up with fake badges and sold on Ebay. Here is the link to Muller's site, which unfortunately has very small photos: Muller Reproduction Cases You can find the Juncker WW1 Pilot's Badge case under the "Luftwaffe" heading in their catalog. Tim

According to my own web site (you don't expect me to remember this stuff off the top of my head, do you?), the calligraphy on the center medallion reads: "Relying on the Assistance of Almighty God, Abdulaziz Khan, Sovereign of the Ottoman Empire." The green leatherette case, as used in WW1, is much harder to find than the earlier green velvet case. This one's a beauty! Tim

The bronze examples I've seen are not BB&Co. I haven't seen very many of them, and I don't recall that any of them were maker marked. Tim

Well, not having ever seen a real one for sale, I guess it looks as good as any other. There could be fakes, but since I have never seen any on the market, I doubt that anyone has started faking them . . . yet. There are some design differences from the one in the posted photo, but that's to be expected. I think it's legit. I haven't been to Turkey for a long time, so I don't know if they if they have Cracker Jacks. Maybe they could put a prize in the middle of a "simit." (If you haven't been there, you probably haven't had a simit, but basically it's something like a cross between a soft pretzel and a sesame-seed bagel.) Tim

Shame on me for forgetting that. Tim

I'm not holding my breath.... As for those fezes (fezzes, fezae???), I have never seen one up close in the real world, not even just the badge itself. That has to be one of the great rarities in WW1 headgear. I can't remember ever seeing one on the market. Tim

The photos are kind of like my vision when I'm not wearing my glasses, only my vision is actually blurrier. I think it's legit, probably 1920's or 1930's. Not so bizarre at all. Tim

Now my assessment of it: The inscription at the top is is laid out in a calligraphy style that makes it difficult to read, but I am pretty sure the first word is "Turkiye". Although it doesn't really look like it, I suspect that it may say "Turkiye Cumhuriyet", or Turkish Republic, which would suggest that the badge is mid 1920's. In the late 1920's, the Turkish Republic adopted a Latin-based alphabet, doing away with Arabic script, so this probably wouldn't date any later than that. I doubt, however, that this was actually an officially sanctioned badge, as the date of the founding of the Ottoman Empire placed at the bottom is a holdover from the Ottoman badge that this was probably cast from, and would have no place on any official badge of the Turkish Republic. It might have been something that was made to order for a pilot who had qualified for the badge during WW1, and wished to keep wearing an "interim" version after the Empire was abolished. Obviously, the badge is rather crudely made, and it would be easy to dismiss it as simply a fantasy item, but the pin attachment is consistent with later Turkish badges (early examples of the Submarine badge dating from the 1930's to the 1950's used this style of pin). Tim

Here's a new twist. Steve French sent me these photos and asked me to comment on the variant badge and post it on the forum. First, the photos:

See W.C. Stump's sad tale on the Wehrmacht Awards Forum, regarding Goering's decorations at the time of his capture: http://www.wehrmacht-awards.com/forums/sho...298574#poststop Tim

I think Helmut Weitze is for the most part a perfectly honest dealer, but outside of German material he sometimes makes mistakes. That badge doesn't look pre-1945 to me, but of course it's just my opinion. Note that Herr Weitze also has a Turkish submarine badge which he lists as a WW1 issue example. There is no such thing as a WW1 Turkish submarine badge. That badge is a standard Turkish Republic officer's sub badge, still in use today. It may be an older example, but probably not earlier than the 1950's. As for Turkish made WW1 pilot badges, I have yet to see one with a Turkish maker's mark, so even if you found one that appeared to be Turkish made, unless it had some kind of markings to indicate that, at best it would be a matter of conjecture. Even German made pieces do not seem to be frequently maker-marked. I have seen Paul Meybauer marked examples, many of which may be fakes, and I have seen bronze examples that are unmarked but have characteristics attributing them to Glaser & Sohne of Dresden. Other than that, I haven't seen any Turkish pilot badges with identifiable origin. Tim

A really interesting variant. I've seen other non-spec variants, including one with red and white enamel, but not one like this. It looks totally right and period to me, but there's no way to conclude whether it was intended for a female, a high-ranking officer, a prizefighter or dog walker or whatever. It's just a deluxe private purchase variant for a buyer who wanted to show off. Cool thing. Tim

Sorry I've been away from the forum for a while. I'll try to catch up. Unfortunately, I don't have a Turkish made badge in my own collection. The one I have is bronze gilt with silvered wings and oval at top (most of the silvering is gone). It's unmarked, but I believe it was made by Glaser & Sohne of Dresden, as I have seen a Zeppelin badge marked with their name that uses an identical pin and catch combination. I don't think Glaser was an official maker of the Zep badge, but the fact that I only saw one with their mark leads me to think that it's not just some fake being pumped onto the market. Regarding Christian's questions, I think that a German jeweler of that time could have made a badge from a drawing of a Turkish badge, or an original of the badge, or whatever. Jewelers are very resourceful. There is a widely held belief in collectors' circles that making a very small number of badges or medals, or even enameled orders, was prohibitively expensive. In my opinion, that is a complete myth. It is a good way to protect yourself as a collector, by labeling anything that is custom made or doesn't fit the exact pattern of a known official die strike, as a copy. That way, you if you don't buy a copy, you will not have to worry about when the copy was made or whether it was actually owned by a legitimate recipient. It's safe. But the fact is that there were many copies that were made, sold and worn during the actual time period of these awards. However, this is getting into a whole separate discussion. There were, to my knowledge, no award documents for the Turkish pilot badge. There may have been some kind of letters of authorization that a German pilot would have to obtain before he could wear one in uniform, but the Turks had no official document for the award. Just to clarify on the tughra questions - most Turkish collectors use the "legibility" of the tughra as an indicator of whether something is Turkish made or a German copy. This does apply to Turkish War Medals as well as pilot badges. The tughra on the pilot badge is very small, but even at that small size the differences are often readily apparent. A German maker would not have been likely to study every line and sworl in the pattern and try to duplicate it exactly. A Turkish maker would have. Although the Turkish badges were not believed to have been struck by the Ottoman mint, they might have been made by Kirkdjian Freres, Constantinople. That firm was basically a subcontractor and court jeweler for the Ottoman government, and would have made very detailed, high quality pieces. I have one picture to offer, which may be helpful. It's from a Hermann Hisorica sale a few years back, and shows a group to a pilot named Von Schlichting. Although I have never seen this group first-hand, I believe the pilot badge shown may be a Turkish made piece. Note the very narrow wings. If you look at the pictures of Buddecke and just about any other pre-1918 photo of German pilots wearing the Turkish badge, you'll see that most of them have these very thin wings. But badges with that wing style are very rare on the collectors market. The reason: most of the badges available were made in Germany, many after the war. Unfortunately, there are probably a great number of badges on the market that were made within the last 10 or 15 years. Now let's see if I can get this photo attached....

Thanks for all your kind words about me. This really is a gentleman's forum, isn't it?!! Ahem... well, there are a lot of questions here, so I'll try to be brief. As far as I know these badges are custom made German wearing copies. The word "custom" is important here, because what I mean is that they are probably not off-the-shelf examples. Including the two pictured here, I have seen exactly three badges using white enameled inserts at the top. They are all different. These two have a distinct rayed star pattern at the top, indicating that they may be from the same maker. The other I have seen, which is in a private collection in San Francisco, has the usual oval shaped cartouche at the top, but in white enamel with a gold tughra. The tughra - the Sultan's monogram - is what the calligraphy on the insert at the top is. In the case shown here, as is typically seen on German made badges, the tughra is actually not depicted correctly. That's actually helpful for collectors, because it allows us to differentiate between the Turkish and German made piecees. Most of the badges you see are German made, and the ones that are believed to have been Turkish made are unmarked, making it hard to prove their origin. But there are some out there where the monogram is not just a lot of sworls and decorative mush - they are an actual calligraphic signature of the Sultan, with real Ottoman Turkish words hidden in their design. But there's something else going on here, as well. The wings on the second badge are canted the opposite direction from normal. The only pilot I know of who wore a badge of that configuration was Buddecke. Could this be his badge? If that's the case, it certainly rules out the "early Turkish Republic" pilot badge theory. If there was an early Republic (post-1923, pre-WW2) pilot badge, I haven't seen one. Tim