Honor Clasps of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS

[Honor]

Hello fellow collectors,

This is my first post in this forum even though I am a long-term militaria collector and have been reading threads in this forum for many years.

One of my all-time favorite awards has always been the Honor Roll Clasp of the German Army. This is a rare award and different variations of original Honor Clasp is a still somewhat "gray"/underexplored area in our hobby. So I have made an extensive research on this subject and would like to discuss with you my findings.

I have over 50 pictures to post in this thread and it may take a few days for me to do, so be patient and before you comment please allow me to finish posting all my findings.

I will start this thread with the outcome of my research: there are three different variations of original Honor Clasp of the Wehrmacht, two types of construction, and made by two different makers (pictured below)

[Honor]

Variant-1:
Maker: Klein
Two-piece construction

[Honor]

Variant-2:
Unknown maker
Two-piece construction

[Honor]

Variant-3:
Unknown maker
One-piece construction

[Michael Everett]

Excellent

Great posting.

Will you also discuss the Army Clasp with flat prongs?

Thanks,



Mike

[Honor]

Great posting.

Will you also discuss the Army Clasp with flat prongs?

Thanks,



Mike

Yes Mike and thank you. All variants will be discussed in great details.

[Michael Everett]

Thanks

Great piece of work!

Mike

[Honor]

Original examples of the Army Honor Roll Clasp can be seen in a few reference books (books that are published in English: Previtera, Gordon, etc.) but all clasps shown in these books are the same variant that is a well-known clasp made by the company of Klein from Hanau (the variant-1 in this thread) .
The best article about Honor clasps I found on this very site, "Clasps of Honor" (written by Jaques Caldero and Sebastián Bianchi).
http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/serv...herr_clasp.htm
The article does not say how many variants or makers of the Honor clasp were there and it only shows one variant, again the same Klein clasp but it states that "The clasp has two variations here as it could be made from one single strike, or the swastika could be of a different strike and soldered on".

[Honor]

Below is an illustration of these two types of construction: one-piece and two-piece clasps

[Honor]

I've tried to find an example of any other (than Klein) original variant of the Honor Clasp in discussions on this and other online forums but pretty much with no success. I found and read all discussions that mentioned the "Honor Clasp" or "Honor Roll" in them. In the picture below I combined all Army Honor clasps that have ever been accepted by collectors as original on this forum.

All clasps / each and every one in this picture is the same variant that is the clasp made by Klein of Hanau. Obviously, the majority of collectors here are only familiar with this one "Klein" type and even when other-than-Klein original variant (much more scarce) shows up on the WAF for discussion, it remains unrecognized, and as a result/eventually declared as a fake (yes, it has already happened with an original one-piece construction clasp at least once before).

[Giel VW]

Extremely interesting, really looking forward to your 50 postings about the HRC. I'm on the tip of my chair!

[Honor]

I have a Honor Clasp in my collection that I bought as original from a trustworthy person. It is a well made, die-strike, two-piece construction clasp with quality of details comparable to (and/or even exceeding) Klein clasps, but it is not Klein (pictured below). I believe that it is an original clasp made by an unknown maker. This unknown maker has made two variations of this award: two-piece construction clasps and single-strike/one-piece construction. My clasp is his two-piece-construction clasp.

Klein has never made one-pice construction clasps. Klein only made one variant - with two-piece construction. The text in the article (above) about two different types of construction is talking about the unknown maker clasps but for illustration was used Klein clasp. More about it later.

[Honor]

Here are close-up pictures of this clasp (unknown maker, two piece construction).
Front

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Right side

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Left side