Cut Out Imperial Prussian Pilot's Badge

[IMPERIAL QUEST]

Hi all,

I was scanning through my Time Life volume of "Knights of the Air" last night and saw something very rarely seen. To my eye, Fritz Rumey is wearing a Prussian Pilot Badge with the field above and below the Taube airplane voided/removed.

My first thought was that it was a Retired Pilot's Badge...but he was killed 24 Sept. 1918 - so he would have not had the opportunity to ever wear one.

Edited March 28, 2007 by IMPERIAL QUEST

[Luftmensch]

WOW--eagle-eyed spot...sure looks like you're right. A couple years ago we had a thread on these cut-outs, and I think Stogie pulled an amazing photo out of thin air showing the upper portion of a pilot's badge removed. We were talking about the latest exotic fake badges that had a PLM and personal dedication to a high-scorer all engraved on the back, and the Taube was meticulously cut-out. People were paying up to $2500 for these hump-ups. Amazing that one of these may have existed, given that it is pretty blatantly non-reg., in fact butchery of a reg badge. I think we hypothesised before that this may only have been possible post-Armistice. But then your pic seems to refute that!

Rgds

John

[Stogieman]

The image I had seemed to be a cliche badge... this one looks like real silver. I'd like to see a much bigger scan though to be sure it's an actual pilot. Angles can play some nasty tricks...

[Steve Russell]

Stogie, Steven,

Looks like a pilot badge in this enlargement. And cut out as well. See below. This would have been in May 1918. Steve

Edited March 29, 2007 by Steve Russell

[Steve Russell]

Supersized.

[Luftmensch]

I dunno, now...all the angles look more and more like this bird to me...

[IMPERIAL QUEST]

I dunno, now...all the angles look more and more like this bird to me...

Hi all,

Thanks for the photos. Well... if it were a Retired Pilot Badge, it has some extra metal...right where the tail of the Taube would be..

Please correct me if I am wrong, but Fritz would have never been entitled to wear the RPB as he was killed in action.

Edited March 29, 2007 by IMPERIAL QUEST

[Steve Russell]

I agree. It can't be a retired pilot badge. For one, Rumy was on active duty when the photo was taken--not retired. Two, the photo was taken shortly before he was awarded the PlM, placing it around May 1918--a problem for dating a retired pilot badge. Three, he was killed in action before the war ended. Soooooo, it must be something else and it sure looks like a Taube on the badge. Too bad it is at an angle. Steve

[Luftmensch]

Where's Les with his arrows when you need him...

Look at the upper curve on your blow-up which would be made by the bird's left wing curving back to the right. There's nothing like that on the pilot's badge. Just the propeller...

Was he transferred temporarily, or discharged with wounds until he recuperated? I think Stogie's saying no other picture of a complete cut-out is known. So odds are it's the known retired pilot. Simplest explanation and all that...

[IMPERIAL QUEST]

Hi Luftmensch,

The Retired Pilot's Badge was not intended for short periods of non-flying status, it was created for Pilots that no longer flew at all.

[Luftmensch]

I'm just more comfortable assuming there's something we don't know about the regs as applied to Rumey's career than that we've spotted a mythical white whale--especially when my lying eyes read the contours as suggesting one badge over another. I guess the third option is that the pilot's badge is in shadow and not cut out.

Rgds

[IMPERIAL QUEST]

Not trying to rattle you...just conversating...

As far as the voided areas being shadows, I find it srange that the "shadows" don't creep into the area of the central object. I personally find it much more plausible that he actually had his badge voided, why is this viewed as such an impossibility? The fact of the matter is, the guy was not entitled nor eligible to wear the RPB...sorry, I just am not following the logic.

If you look at the picture below, you can see that the upper lines of the wings on the Retired Pilot's Badge do not match, even at a differing angle...they actually angle in the opposite direction.

Edited March 29, 2007 by IMPERIAL QUEST

[Luftmensch]

Yup, I think shadow is least likely.

I still see the upper V as formed by wings, but then something is sticking out to the left and it looks longer than a beak...more like a fuselage!?

If I start seeing Jesus in the picture someone come and get me...

[IMPERIAL QUEST]

If I start seeing Jesus in the picture someone come and get me...

Wait...........I think I DO see him.....................in the Pilot's seat

Edited March 29, 2007 by IMPERIAL QUEST

[IMPERIAL QUEST]

I know this is very crude, but it gives you a good visual of why I truly believe it is a cutout Pilot's Badge. The RPB has three voided areas, and the PB has 4 voided areas....

Compare this to Post #12 (without colored areas).

Edited March 29, 2007 by IMPERIAL QUEST

[Luftmensch]

Jeez...I'm gonna start calling you Ahab!

[IMPERIAL QUEST]

Jeez...I'm gonna start calling you Ahab!

Is that good or bad...

[Stogieman]

You guys are killing me with this....

[Les]

I guess the third option is that the pilot's badge is in shadow and not cut out.

Someone mentioned my name in another posting here?

Ok... I pulled some of my books out of storage. There's a well-known photo of Frankl, seated, and facing the camera at an angle. In the photo his pilot's badge can be seen. Here's the interesting part. The flat background part of the badge appears to be tarnished, not cut-out. The higher parts of the badge were probably polished by wear with his overcoat, flight jacket, etc while the recessed areas developed a tarnish.

Perhaps Rumey's badge isn't in shadow, nor cut out, but tarnished?

That thought then led me to wonder if a "poor man's cut out badge" might be simply to let the background of a badge tarnish, while keeping the wreaths and raised parts of the "earth" and "Taube" polished. Allowing a badge to tarnish would be a simple thing to do, and even hastened by using anything with sulphur in it (dissovled match heads or ashes disolved in water, etc).

90 years on, anything with a high silver content will show signs of tarnish, and if there was a "poor mans cut out" we'd never see it on surviving badges; only photos would hint of this. Lastly, this effect would be a trendy thing to do with backed badges and not require having someone cut the badge out and the effect that would have on a badge with a ribbed back plate, etc.

Maybe...maybe not.

Les

[Luftmensch]

Sehr elegant Theorie, Herr Les...

Rgds

PS My favorite sulphur source is a hard boiled egg sliced up.

[IMPERIAL QUEST]

Hi all,

With respect to all posters...I am still convinced this is a cut out version. I am no photo expert, but the granular appearance/pattern in the "cut out" areas of the badge clearly match in consistency with the outer areas surrounding the badge. Finely polishing minute high areas of a badge is in my mind far less probable than simply having it cut out.

Compare the areas of the EK I with the areas behind the Pilot Badge...totally different. The center of the EK I is either blued or painted, much like dark tarnish so one would expect the areas of the PB to be much darker and more evenly consistent in appearance if it were tarnished.

Any how, just one man's opinion....simply defending my observations.

I am obsessed, I admit it.

Edited April 2, 2007 by IMPERIAL QUEST

[Luftmensch]

Now if we'd only had you and Les studying photos for WMDs in Iraq...

[IMPERIAL QUEST]

Now if we'd only had you and Les studying photos for WMDs in Iraq...

But I did Sir....I did.....

[Steve Russell]

I'm with Steven on this one.

We have a photo that looks to clearly to show a cut out badge. We have a pilot that was not retired (Hmmmm...that is a problem isn't it). We have a date of the photo as May 1918. None of this adds up to a retired pilot badge on Rumy. I think you have to consider what you see in the picture.

Tarnish? Come on. He is dressed impeccably in the picture. Do we think that just because he is an NCO he is letting himself go? Hardly. Let's at least consider he kept himself neatly dressed for his pre-PlM photo back in Germany on leave--and on display to an admiring public.

I also have not heard any disucssion on when the retired pilot badge was instituted. Was it common in the Spring of 1918? And on active pilots? It seems far easier to defend a cut-out variant possibility than to explain away everything else. I am however enjoying the discussion. My two cents. Steve

Edited April 2, 2007 by Steve Russell

[Luftmensch]

Yup, the problem is definitely what we don't know we don't know. Mike Stacey of C and C was telling me at SOS that we've got it all wrong about the so-called Retired Pilot's badge, that it was in fact given out after so much time in service, and it was up to you what you wore--most army pilots evidently preferring the plane to the fat bird. I have seen two Urkunden to pilots in the summer and fall of 1918 awarding this badge while they were still in the service, but I have no other personal details. I now think (how many times have I reversed myself?) that it was just as unsoldierly to step out with a sloppy tarnished badge as it was to take a can-opener to it and alter its appearance.

So Occam's Razor tells me its the shadow caused by UFOs crossing at that precise moment in front of the sun...or a "Retired" Pilot.

Rgds

John