Heer Silver Grade Sniper Badge

[Daniel Murphy]

This piece has been in the collection of a good friend for over 20 years (that I know of, he may have had it longer). He never had any desire to part with it and he kept it as acquired from the WW2 Veteran. Unfortunately the vet had it wadded up and folded through an open belt buckle. I had always told my friend he should remove it, but he would state "Thats how I got it, so that is how it stays". I always had a good feeling about it being a real one and tried several times over the years to buy it, but no deal. He has been having trouble making ends meet since he retired and has been selling off some pieces. Last night I visited him and he offered me some nice breast eagles and I picked out some and purchased them. He then asked me what else did I want to buy and I told him this badge. He hemmed and hawed and finally named a reasonable price and I bought it. When I got home, I carefully removed it from the buckle and it was severely misshapen. The base cloth is a really fragile late war type wool felt backed up by an even more fragile thin wool felt backer of a slightly different shade. Because of this, I very carefully wet it with some warm water, carefully returned it to it's original shape (as best I could), pressed it in a towel with my hand until mostly dry and then let it fully dry. This is the result and I would appeciate your honest opinions on it. I believe Detlev sold one of similar construction in the basic grade that showed signs of being ripped off a uniform. This one does not have any evidence that it was ever on a uniform. If it proves to be real, I am going to help him out with some extra money.

Dan

Edited January 10, 2007 by Daniel Murphy

[Paul R]

This is an interesting topic. Is there anyone who has had contact with a real one of these? I know that they are SUPER rare.

[Daniel Murphy]

Here is a comparison to the one Detlev Niemann sold. While the background colors and the shades of green are different, they would appear to be from the same manufacturer.

[Stogieman]

Hi Daniel, I don't think your's, or Detlev's is legit. I believe that the damaged one was ultimately shown/accepted as post-ww2. On the very few that have been shown on the forums over the years, the colors were very different from the one(s) shown, as was the stitching in the head (??) Looking through archive material now....

[Robin Lumsden]

Not much help......but here's a death card mentioning one of these badges, so some were undoubtedly awarded. I don't think any sniper would have been brave enough to wear the badge though. Capture as a sniper meant instant (and probably painful) death, on all fronts.

Edited January 9, 2007 by Robin Lumsden

[Stogieman]

I've been through all my archive photos and cannot find anything other than an original photo of the one sold by Detlev. I thought that this was refuted as an original over at WAF, possibly by John Donovan (??)

There's one additional example for sale in Canada with a Certificate from Detlev Niemann, available at eMedals:

As we can see, there's some distinct differences. I do not know if this is because there's multiple makers, or if perhaps one is real, the other not. Given the rarity, it is difficult to discuss these badges as most people have only seen one or two, if very lucky. I look forward to anything that can be done to enhance everybody's knowledge and understatnding of these items!!

[Ralph A]

Here is something I have been meaning to mention. All embroidery work of this time period was done on machines that followed a strict pattern determined by a tape that worked much like the "tapes" used on old self-playing pianos. As to embroidery machines, the stitching needles would drop according to the hole patterns in the tape.

So if a single stitch is off, it didn't come from the intital, master tape. These tapes were VERY hard to make, as it was done by hand, so I doubt if a manufacturer would have made two tapes for the same design. Even today it is expensive to have an embroidery guide "digitized." It's artwork, and its done by hand.

[Fred Green]

Greetings All,

The type of embroidery work that you are talking about is BeVo weave. This insignia is not done in BeVo and if it was it would be fake! There are some very nice discussian on this insignia on another forum. The two examples posted I believe to be fake. Just my opinion.

Fred Green

[PKeating]

The badge sold by Niemann is certainly not original and there were several discussions about it, some of them quite acrimonious. Nor, sadly, is the one Daniel Murphy shows. These have been faked since the 1960s.

PK

[Daniel Murphy]

Gentlemen,

Thank you all for your help.

Dan

Edited January 10, 2007 by Daniel Murphy