EK 1914 A new 1914 EK2 arrived

[Motorhead]

This one dropped in yesterday-Maker marked Fr.W. The W. is stamped in a box,but standing at the head when you look at the Fr.! There are many different variations of this maker-or could all these Fr markings be different makers? Well,I haven't seen a "Fr.W." stamped EK2 before,but I know there are EK1 with this stamp......

Micha

[Motorhead]

Reverse

[Motorhead]

Maker Mark

[joe campbell]

VERY interesting combination, micha!

i've seen both as single makers, but never both.

and both are very clean stamps.

do you entertain the notion that that perhaps

the W is actually an M?

a very nice addition to your already impressive

collection.

joe

[Motorhead]

Hi Joe,

I would suggest it's a W-have a look at the little dot next to the W! A friend of mine owns a 1st. class FrW,I would like to find out if it's stamped the same way.

Micha

[Doug See]

Hi Joe,

I would suggest it's a W-have a look at the little dot next to the W! A friend of mine owns a 1st. class FrW,I would like to find out if it's stamped the same way.

Micha

I have an Fr W EK1 in my collection, marked under the catch and in two separate insiced boxes. My EK1 is completely different than my Fr in terms of core details, frame, and pin. It would be interesting to find out what's behind the Fr, FR and Fr W markings.

[joe campbell]

missing a period....

sorry about that micha.

it certainly does make it a W.

but you need to understand that in my line of

work, missing a period is actually pretty common!!

regards,

joe

[Motorhead]

I have an Fr W EK1 in my collection, marked under the catch and in two separate insiced boxes. My EK1 is completely different than my Fr in terms of core details, frame, and pin. It would be interesting to find out what's behind the Fr, FR and Fr W markings.

Doug,

any chance to see some pics? I would like to compare your EK with my FR/Fr.....It seems to be the maker FR used just one core,but all my Fr pieces are a little different-and when you have a look at the 2nd class Fr...a few different stamp variations,same with the core.There's a lot of work in it for the serious EK collector!

Micha

Edited November 7, 2005 by Motorhead

[Daniel Murphy]

"Fr." has been attributed to Friedlander. Given that there is a connection between Friedlander and Wagner, as in the case of pour le merites made by those firms, the "W" could very well be for Wagner.

Update I just checked out the list of EK 2 maker marks and W is attributed to Wagner. My belief is that Friedlander was a company associated with Wagner. Perhaps one firm made the parts and another assembled them or such. I will refer to the PLMs again. Friedlander who had never made them shows up on the scene in 1916 with a government contract making PLMs with a die that is so close to Wagners they are virtually indistinquishable. And this right at the time when more PLMs (and everything else) were being awarded than ever (in WW1). Wagner may have been asked to up the quota and their facility would have been running full steam by this time. They very likely refered the government to Friedlander and produced a die for them to make them.

So if there was some sort of problem (fire, etc. ) that put one company out of production for a time or lack of manufacturing capacity, the other company would help out the first within it's ability. Parts made by one firm might be finished by the other and returned to fill the contract. The ring may have been stamped once when made by one company, and stamped again when the cross was finished by the other.

Remember these companies are under contract with the goverment to supply so many EK 2's a month. If you did not meet your quota you were fined, the goverment did not care if you had a fire, they only knew that you could not meet your contract. Worst case scenario is the contract would be cancelled by the government since you failed to meet it. In business this is very bad, fail to meet your government contract and good luck getting any more (lucrative) government contracts. For a maker of military medals and badges this would be disastrous. You would do whatever is neccesary to meet the contract.

Dan Murphy

Edited November 10, 2005 by Daniel Murphy

[Doug See]

Doug,

any chance to see some pics? I would like to compare your EK with my FR/Fr.....It seems to be the maker FR used just one core,but all my Fr pieces are a little different-and when you have a look at the 2nd class Fr...a few different stamp variations,same with the core.There's a lot of work in it for the serious EK collector!

Micha

Sure. I'll be able to work on it this weekend.

[Doug See]

I tried to upload a small .jpg of my FrW 1st class (about 86 KB), but the system wouldn't allow it. Sorry. I'll post it over on the WAF as a new thread under the Imperial section until I get this figured out.

Edited November 11, 2005 by Doug See