APB's in Tuckers book

[Prosper Keating]

I want to make it clear that I will not allow another rehashing of the debate regarding this particular badge. I think everyone has voiced their opinions, all that can be said has been said and it has been adequately documented. I want to make it clear that I will not allow another rehashing of the depate regarding this particular badge. I think everyone has voiced their opinions, all that can be said has been said and it has been adequately documented.

I do not think that anyone could disagree with this. And in response to Ivan's point, Ivan is right in that this book will encourage those who wish to continue in the belief that these badges are of genuine pre-May 1945 manufacture. That's their problem. In fact, personally speaking, I am quite happy if the wilfully foolish, the congenitally stupid and the plain dumb who bob around on the edges of our hobby confine themselves to buying rubbish as it means all the more goodies for the serious-minded.

PK

[Jody]

Aluminum AP Badge

Hi Guys,
I wanted to let you folks know that the Aluminum Heer Paratrooper badge featured in the book is the one that belongs to me.

I have not seen the book yet, but Mike did have my AP badge along with a bunch of other badges from my collection for photographing (my 1st pattern E-boat, Auxiliary Cruisers, etc).

This is the same AP badge that I got from a US veteran in the late 70's or early 80's. That is my story on the badge. It was not bought froma dealer for big dollars, I actually have little or nothing in the badge, as with most things in my collection. We discussed this badge on the forum a few years ago.

I also got from a US vet around that same time my Heer AP badge in zinc.

I consider Mike and Steve friends, and I know that the book will be a good product. Yes, there may or could be some errors in it, but the final product will be excellent. I look forward to purchasing and reading the book.
Regards,
Jody

[IVAN]

Hi,

I agree with you, Jody
me too I'm very happy there are these kind of books (look my comment in the pool-thread about the book in Association area) and so very good made.

I want to specify that my comment was exclusively on this kind of WHpara badge, always very discussed, independently that it's in this book or not.

Nobody is perfect but I'm sure in this book there will be really only very few errors.

I want to tell this because I feel not a good reactions in this forum about the book and I don't understand why !besides it has not gone out yet!

Ivan

[Prosper Keating]

Sorry Eric! Can't let this past!

Jody Beltram wrote...amongst other things:

I also got from a US vet around that same time my Heer AP badge in zinc.

Jody, I want you to know that I have nothing against you at all and that I respect your right to believe what you like. If you wish to believe that your 'Juncker-marked Army Para Badge' is real because you got it from a veteran, it cost you very little and now it's in Mike Tucker's book, then that is your prerogative. We've been through this before, as you say, and the subject has been exhausted. But for those readers who are new to all of this and who have not read our article or observed any of the previous debates on this forum, I shall briefly summarise a few points.

I have seen a photo of your 1943 pattern FSA d. H in feinzink and it appears to be perfectly genuine. The 1943 pattern APBs were made on the same dies as the 1937/38 second pattern APBs. The wreaths of the 2nd pattern and 1943 pattern were struck on the same dies as the wreaths of the 1937 1st pattern APBs, all known surviving examples of which bear the C E Juncker hallmark. One known example of the prewar 2nd pattern APB bears the same hallmark, the FSA (H) that belonged to Alfred Ludwig.

OK...all clear so far? It is pretty clear that C E Juncker made the 1st, 2nd and 1943 pattern APBs. All agreed? Nod your heads. Good! So...if the contentious APB, the one that Jody - along with dealers like Cross and Tucker who sell them - asserts is original really is an original 2nd pattern aluminium APB, then where exactly in does it fit into the scheme of things? When was it made?

One dealer suggested that it was made early in WW2 for sale to FIK/FIB veterans whose badges were lost or damaged. Sometime between January 1st 1939 when the APB was abolished and June 1st 1943 when the OKW revived it for, primarily, para-trained members of the Brandenburg? If that were the case, then surely C E Juncker would simply have used the existing dies. After all, they used these dies for the 1943 issue in feinzink, as any comparison between the prewar aluminium and wartime zinc versions shows.

Someone else, clutching at straws, contended that the questionable APBs as sold by various dealers and defended by collectors like Jody were made after the destruction by aerial bombardment of C E Junckers' premises in December 1944. Yeah, well, OK, some people might grasp at that as a plausible-sounding argument. But let's examine it, shall we? It's December 1944. The Luftwaffe have closed down their para-training facilities because of lack of resources. Most of the recruits, for instance, to SS-Fallschirmjäger Btl 600 in Neu-Strelitz, bar the SS-FJ Btl 500 veterans and a few lucky 600 recruits who got their jumps in the previous summer before being posted to battalion, are not para-trained. There is no pressing need for para badges. The badge-makers at this point can't even get it together to make any of the recently instituted Luftwaffe battle badges...or the Army Balloon Observer Badge. So...who made these 'C E Juncker APBs in aluminium'? Bearing in mind, of course, that aluminium was considered a precious metal before WW2 and was deemed even more precious during the war, once the Allied blockade started biting. That's why German war badges were made of zinc and pot metal from 1942 on. C E Juncker? They cast some wreaths from the cylinder head of a downed Allied plane, cut a new die for the diving eagle, and, bingo, they were back in business filling orders for a badge that was no longer needed. I don't think so! Perhaps the Chief Buyer scrambled from the smoking ruins, found a telephone and ordered some up from somewhere else? Really? So someone else tooled up to make these badges and sent them over to the hole-in-the-ground that used to be Juncker who then stamped every third one up with a stamp not seen on any other known wartime badges and sent them out. Sure...and then the LDO closed them down for using a precious war resource - aluminium - for work not essential to the war effort and they all ended up on KZ camps for sabotage...which is why nobody can find any ex-Juncker employees to shed light on such issues.

Get real!

No, I'm afraid that I have to favour the view that these were made in the late 1960s and the 1970s with the intention of gulling collectors into buying what was always a rare and expensive Third Reich badge. The C E Juncker hallmarks found on some of them were probably applied more recently in a bid to make the badge more attractive to those who think a maker's mark is a guarantee of authenticity. It is possible that the late Dr Kleitmann and his wife, who ran Godet in the '60s and '70s, were involved in this scam. Lord knows they were involved in enough monkey business!

So, Jody, if you examine your two APBs closely, side-by-side, you will see that they were not made on the same dies. As for the hallmark, I respectfully refer you to the acres of bandwidth taken up elsewhere in these forums on the subject of genuine, period C E Juncker hallmarks and postwar stamps as used by fakers.

I could go on but there's little point in arguing with people who would be members of the Flat Earth Society if they didn't have militaria to distract them . However, there are a few points that should be made before we move on.

I think that Stephen Previtera's motives are good and that he is trying to produce good reference books. But it is a shame that he has, so far, chosen to place more trust in in the advice of some dealers with a poor track record when it comes to selling high end fakes than in the advice of collectors and students of the subject who, not being dealers, have no vested interests in promoting fakes as originals. His beautiful-looking Iron Cross book was undermined by the inclusion of quite a few fakes, some of which, like the bullet-holed Knight's Cross, were glaringly obvious. And now this latest book is found to be flawed before it has even hit the bookshelves! How unfortunate!

This is not to suggest that the book is without merit. I am sure that it is a wonderful reference work, that most of it is absolutely fine. But it is a pity that Mr Previtera appears to have preferred the word, in several cases that we know of so far, of dealers whose reputations with regard to expertise and honesty are far from untarnished. As I said, it is a shame because Mr Previtera is said to be well-meaning but at this rate, he and his publishers are going to have rather more than a few minor errors to correct in future editions.

Meanwhile, some dealers will have made a killing selling junk like the fake Army Para Badge pictured in the book and the Army Balloon Observer Badge to people ready to believe that they're paying four-figure sums for the real deal. Dealers like Messrs Cross and Tucker who are involved in this book. Go figure!

PK