Not a badge collector at all and only buy them from vet sources. Just got this in from the vets grandson but wanted to check it out before I offered it for sell. Any opinions welcome.
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French made piece. These are quite controversial so if this is "vet acquired" it would be nice to get details of how he came by it and any documentation of same. You can do a search as there are quite a few threads discussing these badges.
JAndrewComment
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http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...=1#post6489445
Was brought back by this vet in the thread above.Comment
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Agreed, so called Bacqueville HSF.
Cheers,
HubertComment
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Hi Perry,
Lots of reading on these in this thread and the links contained within it:
http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=738443
Best regards,
---NormComment
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Thanks guys, I did a quick search last night and it looks like a 60-30-15 opinion. 60 have no concerns, 30 feel like they are wartime made but not official pieces or were made for GI market and 15 feel they are fake, 5 don't care. Reminds me of the Balkan cross ID flags a few years back, split at about the same percentages. Although a great number had been purchased from vet sources since wars end there still was a decent sized group that thought they were made for GI's or outright fantasy pieces because there was no wartime photo showing them in use. However a couple years ago 2 photo's surfaced thanks to the internet. Now it's a forgotten issue, maybe one day that will be the case here. I have no doubt whatsoever that my vet brought this badge home from the war. Now was it a official piece or a piece made exclusively for the GI market I don't know. It's possible we may never know for sure
unless a picture surfaces
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Hi Perry,Originally posted by Perry Floyd View PostThanks guys, I did a quick search last night and it looks like a 60-30-15 opinion. 60 have no concerns, 30 feel like they are wartime made but not official pieces or were made for GI market and 15 feel they are fake, 5 don't care.
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I have no doubt whatsoever that my vet brought this badge home from the war. Now was it a official piece or a piece made exclusively for the GI market I don't know. It's possible we may never know for sure unless a picture surfaces
I agree the vet bring-back anecdotes are compelling, and experienced folks like John T. would certainly agree.
But I'm not sure where you got your popular opinion stats. The WAF survey shows only 49% believing them to be wartime with 20% calling them fake and the rest in between. Your statistic of 90% believing them to be wartime production (whether official or non-official) could only have been generated from a roomful of dealers and owners with bias I'm afraid.
As the owner of the only Minesweeper badge in this series, you'd expect now I'd be biased towards them, but I try to keep a balanced attitude towards these "French-made" badges. Authenticity is based not on popular opinion but on fact. I stand by the synopsis posted previously here, and in my opinion they're definitely old, quite possibly wartime production (though unproven), and almost certainly unofficial and never awarded by the Kriegsmarine. On the last point, I think only wishful thinking still holds out for any chance one was awarded by the KM or worn by a sailor on duty.
Best regards,
---NormComment
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Originally posted by Norm F View Post
I scanned through 2-3 threads and felt the feedback was around those percentages but if that's not correct by not taking in more threads on the subject then I stand corrected. I'm not a badge guy so it's something I don't keep a daily pulse on like other areas.
One things for sure, WWII vets were bringing them back and they were getting them somewhere, the rest is now up to us. But like the balken cross flags pics only showed up a couple years ago, you never know.Comment
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Hi Perry,Originally posted by Perry Floyd View Post
That's why the input of guys like you is invaluable to this discussion -- a "non-badge" guy with experience in U.S. vets and without preconceptions in this discussion.
From your other thread, I see the source of your badge and grouping was Frank R. File, a U.S. Navy civilian specialist at the rank of Lieutenant Commander in "supply". One could imagine in that capacity he would have been more likely to uncover stashes of artifacts rather than confiscate any individual awards from POWs. It would be great to know his actual service record with his postings and date of return from Europe. I wonder if there's any way to find this out?
The growing number of anecdotes of U.S. vet bring-backs and continued absence of any German vet bring-backs only reinforces the notion these were unofficial pieces while supporting an early date for their production. As stated in past threads, dealing of official awards in foreign occupied countries was officially discouraged in published announcements. If we take these early post-war anecdotes at face value (and certainly none have been discredited to date), then it makes much more sense for them to have been produced in wartime and never awarded than for an entirely new production of tooling and packaging to have been created from scratch in the immediate post-war period.
And that brings me to my personal bias: all the circumstantial evidence to date suggests that even if produced in wartime there should not exist any wartime photos of German sailors wearing them. Even though my personal opinion tends towards wartime production, if such a portrait were to conveniently appear, I would be biased towards such a photo being a forgery without some very compelling evidence to support it.
Best regards,
---NormComment
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