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    Availability/Price of Luftwaffe Officer tabs


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    Hi,

    I was fortunate enought to obtain my Officer flak and flight tab sets (paired) as a complete or mostly complete set. It was only until recently when I started to look for specific tabs in different waffenfarbes that I began to notice the availability, or I should say dearth of, and widely varying prices on tabs. So yesterday when I had some time I decided to look thru about 20 different sites to see what was available and how much dealers were asking. Dealers ranged from the big ones to small ones, both in the US and abroad. Here is a summary of what I found (very unscientific study...of only PAIRED tabs):

    Difficulty to locate (from easy to hard): Flak, Signal, Flight, Medical, Engineer (Admin was prevalant but for this "study" I did not actively count them but would probably be around the same as Signal). Waffenfarbes seen once or twice would be HG officers, Eng (black waffenfarbe), Field Divs, Gen staff and any reserve type tabs.

    Rank availability: As would be expected lower ranks were easier to locate, but I was really suprised to see the actual breakdown (this is for both Flak and Flight):

    Leutnant (29)

    Oberleutnant (11)

    Hauptmann (24)

    Major (7)

    Oberstleutnant (1)

    Oberst (1)

    Prices were widely varied with the German dealers tending to have the highest prices overall:

    Leutnant $40 - $102

    Oberleutnant $45 - $75

    Hauptmann $50 - $117

    Major $60 - $125

    Oberstleutnant $95

    Oberst $500

    Reserve Hauptmann $160

    Reserve Oberleutnant $80

    Reserve Leutnant $200

    As I said before this was just based on observation and a rough count of what was available. Many sites did not have ant Luft tabs at all.

    Comments?

    Gary B

    Edited by Gary B
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    To the best of my knowledge and from what I can find out, Black is not the waffen farbe for pioneers in the Luft. For the "pure" Luftwaffe, Air and not ground forces, Black was for the RLM not pioneers.

    The waffenfarbe was used for both construction troops and the RLM.

    I have NEVER paid that much for any tabs that were listed! WOW! Affordability is the reason I collect these. Except for a couple of exceptions, I have never paid more than 50 dollars for any set. Most I have aquired for 20 dollars or below(except for that lot I have just received).

    500 dollars for a set of oberst tabs :speechless1: ?!!?! What was the waffenfarbe?

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    Hi,

    Pete, I blame Paul!

    Paul, the $500 Oberst pair were for flight personnel. It was from one of the big German dealers. It was the only set of Oberst tabs I saw on all of the sites, which is why I was surprised. I know Oberst would be rarer than Leutnant but I did not expect to see such a huge difference in availability. The same site had perhaps 2-3 other Oberst sets for different waffenfarbe, again in the $400 plus range. Again I had assumed that flight Oberst or Flak Oberst would have been not so hard to find....boy was I wrong....

    In summation of my "findings": its not that hard or expensive to get differnt waffenfarbe pairs up thru Hauptmann. Any ranks above that are really scare if not almost impossible to find.

    Gary B

    The waffenfarbe was used for both construction troops and the RLM.

    I have NEVER paid that much for any tabs that were listed! WOW! Affordability is the reason I collect these. Except for a couple of exceptions, I have never paid more than 50 dollars for any set. Most I have aquired for 20 dollars or below(except for that lot I have just received).

    500 dollars for a set of oberst tabs :speechless1: ?!!?! What was the waffenfarbe?

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    • 3 years later...

    I could not resist bringing this old thread back to the top. Paul, I'll take every $20 and most $50 sets of(officer) tabs you have. Hard to find many nice matching officer sets under $50 without having eye soars. Would love to hear everyone's updated comments

    Eric

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