Luftwaffe my favourite pilot's badge

[Eric Stahlhut]

got this many years ago from an antique dealer in new zealand that specialized in antique silver. price was right and item was certified as being silver

Edited March 2, 2009 by Eric Stahlhut

[Eric Stahlhut]

detail of obverse. btw, eagle and wreath are silver; donut rivets are tombak and hooks are brass as you will see. swaz looks to have been re attached at some point

Edited March 2, 2009 by Eric Stahlhut

[Eric Stahlhut]

overview of reverse

[Eric Stahlhut]

eagle

[Eric Stahlhut]

detail

[Eric Stahlhut]

well done hinge system

[Eric Stahlhut]

detail on pin

[Eric Stahlhut]

[Eric Stahlhut]

overall dimensions are smaller than a regulation badge. but it's thicker and heavier

[Eric Stahlhut]

size comparison

[Harrier]

First like this I've ever seen. Certainly an interesting design, even if it is, in fact, a fake.

[Eric Stahlhut]

reason why i classified it as fake is because no one has definitively seen anything like it before or can show a comparable example/image. when i posted it eons ago on waf it was decried as such, but for no real reason except that it did not fit within the realm of known examples. btw, certainly took a lot of work for someone if it is indeed a badge made with the intent to deceive. are there lots of these floating around? perhaps it's an early fake from the 50s?

i always have liked finding tricky odd things like this. anyone have fresh news about this?

[Harrier]

Maybe it's a jeweler piece. That navy pin set-up is just weird enough to be believable. Of course, being unique is not the same as being real, but it certainly is interesting!

[Eric Stahlhut]

Of course, being unique is not the same as being real, but it certainly is interesting!

yep! :cheers:

[Chris Boonzaier]

Hi,

When someone (Like a pilot) buys a silver piece, surely they look for something that is finer, better, nicer than the issue one? Something where the quality justifies the price?

Best

Chris

[Harrier]

Here (to be taken lightly!) is what a dealer might say:

"Fine duplicate pilot badge made for a Kriegsmarine officer in a foreign port, probably in Asia, perhaps Japan (which adopted silver fineness marks in 1928). Very unusual casting of a real badge. Slight damage to one arm of the swastika (made by the jeweler as a separate piece). Very strange rivet design, with rivets showing rust oxidation from exposure to salt air (as onboard ship).Mounting hardware certainly copied from standard naval badge, to suit officer's tastes. UNIQUE!"

[Gene]

One of the ugliest fakes I've ever seen, to be honest

[Ulsterman]

Logically, if it is real silver and unique, then it is genuine.

Fakers are businessmen. They tend to mass produce where and when they can. Ever seen the piles of boxes of airship badges that were circulating in 1992? Or similar piles of assault badges about the same time coming from Poland?

In the 1970s again, there was a series of mass produced runs of items-many at a @ 150 pieces or so as that was the minimum order certain metal workshops in Birmigham and Luton would take as a subcontract.

The price of lufty badge has really only exploded to absurd levels over the past 15 years (with the advent of the internet actually). I remember hesitating to buy one in 1993 for $60.

Consensus seems to be that it is unique....and it has been assayed as real silver, so there you go. Nobody would make a fake from real silver, UNLESS the money was there to do so and they had the metal craft skills to do so. To make that badge even via a mold that was later polished up would have taken someone a LOT of time and effort-far more than the going price of these.

Jewelers however, have been making special one offs for clients for many years. I once saw a real gold Liberation of Kuwait medal made by a Texas jeweler in the FJP catalog. I also remember our local jeweler making an Iranian order of the Sun from scratch for our neighbor, after a horse stepped on his!

Edited March 3, 2009 by Ulsterman

[J Temple-West]

Eric,

You say the piece was ?certified as being silver??I take it, by the dealer?

This could be possible if it were a casting of a 1957 series badge, as I suspect it to be.

This would account for smaller overall size, the lack of (and later added) swastika and the use of the hollow rivet style used in the 1957 series.

The ?800? stamp is certainly in the style of a period mark, showing that this item was most likely produced soon after the release of the 1957 series, and the person producing it had some knowledge of Luftwaffe acceptance codes, hence the addition of the number ?5? stamp, being one of them. Of course, the use of the ?5? was a step too far as this acceptance code was never used on any qualification badge.

A period privately produced Pilot?s badge? No?. ugly? Yes?. But an interesting insight into how money could be made, nevertheless.

[Ulsterman]

Fascinating!

So, this one-off piece (I assume it IS actually 80% real silver content for the sake of discussion) is proven to be a fake because of the "5" code, presumably added for 'authenticity' ?

I cannot fathom how a faker could make money on such an item, unless it's a 1957 piece that has been fiddled with.

JTW have you ever seen another such item?

Where in Gods' name would one find someone to do this type of silversmithing these days?

Eric-how long have you had this piece?

I am agog!