S.S. Identity Disk ?

[QSAMIKE]

Good Morning Gentlemen.....

I picked up the following with a bunch of old WW2 uniforms and since I am not a collector of this type of item I am wondering if anyone can tell me anything about it.....

GERMAN WW2 IDENTITY DISK / DOG TAG SHAPE:

Written in Two Lines -

8881

SS PZ.GREN.ERS.BTL.11

(Note: the SS is in Runes type)

of course it is mirrored on the other side.

SHAPE: Oval

SIZE: 69.41 mm X 48.91 MM / 2.736 in. X 1.897 in.

Made so that it can be broken in half and has one round hole in top and two in bottom (or vice versa).

The odd thing is there is no name or other personal information on the tag as you would expect to find or am I wrong.

Is there any value to these?

I would post a photo but my camera gave up the ghost and I have to get a new one will post photo soon as I do.....

Mike

Edited June 25, 2010 by QSAMIKE

[Tony]

Mike,

I'll start by saying I'm not a collector of WWII items but the tag sounds about standard.

SS tags are faked like it's going out of fashion or at least they used to be but, I do have a SS tag to a sniper, I was told it was easy to see it was a fake although I knew the person whose tag it was and I was also left his Soldbuch when he died. I suppose what I'm saying is that it can be difficult to tell an original from fake unless it's an obvious shiny new one.

The only details on the tag are a number (service number?), SS rank and unit, all abbreviated. These details are in 3 untidy lines, probably because sniper is a long word even though it's abbreviated but then the unit name is long too, the details match up with his Soldbuch and I believe it's standard to have so little information when comparing to Commonwealth ID tags.

By the way, the tag I have has SS in Latin and was a late war (early 45) issue.

Tony

[Hauptmann]

Hi Mike,

First off I wanted to suggest if you go shopping for a new camera if you can manage it you might want to consider adding a nice little Epson scanner. The newer flatbeds don't run too much and they're wonderful for the kind of pics we do... especially Epsons. In the absense of our esteemed fellow member Rick I've decided to jump in and be the promoter of same. They do a great job, they're easy to use and are literally worth their weight in gold.

Re: the disk... I did a quick google search and came up with the following:

http://warrelics.eu/forum/erkennungsmarken-id-discs/ss-vt-pioneer-id-disk-13713/

This one shows several SS examples... one with the runes the others with the SS:

http://www.thirdreichmedals.com/tags.html

http://www.feldgrau.com/soldier-id.html

Sorry I can't be of more help.

Dan

[QSAMIKE]

Here are the pictures.....

Mike

[QSAMIKE]

One More.....

[QSAMIKE]

The system will not let me edit my own post but I will add the following here:

One more thing, the location that I obtained this from did not even know what it was and I don't think that they faked it as the price was only a dollar.....

Mike

[Tony]

One more thing, the location that I obtained this from did not even know what it was and I don't think that they faked it as the price was only a dollar.....

Mike

Either way it was a bargain.

I hope someone here can give the confirmation that it's original.

Tony

[Skookum]

SS PZ.GREN.ERS.BTL.11 translates to SS Panzer Grenadier Ersatz Battalion 11

[Naxos]

Hi Mike; I cannot comment on the authenticity of the tag since better scans are needed. However, the inscription looks right.

Value if real would be over $100.

Here is some info on this unit

SS-Panzer-Grenadier-Ersatz-Bataillon 11

The 11th Armored Infantry Replacement Battalion of the SS was created in December 1941 from foreign SS volunteers.

The Battalion provided replacements to the SS Divisions "Nordland", "Nederland" and others. Many Dutch and Scandinavian volunteers served in this unit. The Battalion was stationed in Graz (Austria).

Hope that helped :cheers:

Edited December 24, 2010 by Naxos