Hello to all, recently a friend of mine traded a cheap India manufactured decorative sword I had for what he said was an early postwar BRD panzer beret badge. My friend was sent to Germany during desert storm and has been to Germany several times since as a tourist and is not sure when he purchased the badge, he is more of the hoarder type than a real collector and has no interest in history and can not remember when he purchased it. The badge in question is a BRD beret badge without the federal flag at the bottom and is marked OLC in a diamond . The badge seems too minty and shiny to have any real age but everything I have read says the badges without flags predate the ones with the federal colors. I have almost nothing invested in this badge but could it in fact be real?
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Correct, the first type of badge did not have the German flag on them. Otherwise, they are identical to the second type, which is still in use today. Unless a badge was worn A LOT they do tend to look in good shape. I can't comment on whether this one is fake or not, however I'd guess it's genuine simply because they're not hard to find so why fake 'em?
Steve -
As far as I now, you only find Panzer and Fallshirmjager badges without the flags, (they were the first guys to get the colored berets). When the other services got thiers in the late 70s early 80s those badges had the flag from the start and the falli and pz guys had thier badges "updated".
Although not as common as they used to be, you can still find the flagless badges pretty easy, I doubt anyone would take the time/money to fake them...yetComment
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I may have mislabeled this thread because I have seen a few of these that are fake at collector's fairs and flea markets. All were real badges painted gold or bronze or are obvious castings with pin backs and or fantasy additions like iron crosses or the stick grenade and helmet from the Eastern front medal in place of the flag. The purpose of makeing them is to misrepresent them as WW2 items. Thanks for the reply and have a good day.Comment
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I knew this was a low priced item but because my friend considers reproductions to be just as good as the real thing because he can buy or trade for them cheaper I had to ask someone. When I turned 40 he gave me an "SS helmet" for my birthday. Its a real nice DDR helmet that came with fake decals that I was able to soak off with water. Considering the source I only buy or trade low priced items with him.Comment
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DDR helmets don't look anything like WW2 German helmets. Are you sure it's a DDR helmet? Perhaps post-war German fire, police, or BGS.
SteveComment
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Hi!Originally posted by PASSAUER8884 View Post
First Model Beret Badges without the german flags were:
- Fallschirmjäger
- Panzer
- Jäger
And even after they had been issued with flags, soldiers tried to get items without the flags. It is known that lot of NCO´s of Fallschirmjäger still wore the Badges without the flags on their Barett. Sometimes those badges are "chromed"... Ok, Ich muss dabei auch kotzen, aber ist wohl cool, oder so ;-)
best regards
MichaelComment
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Gents - About 10 years ago, I ran into a former BW Fallschirmjäger at a flea market in Heidelberg. He was selling some of his insignia to include a beret badge. It is the one pictured below without the flag.
He told me that when the berets were first issued in the 1970s, the fallis were very disappointed in the quality of the badge. They felt they were made of cheap metal like a "tinny". The strongest of them could twist the badge with their bare hands.
Consequently, some of the fallis, including the gent I met, took it upon themselves to make their own insignia. They wanted a heavy badge with some substance to it. The result is shown below, next to a later issue badge with the flag.
The man's story seemed believable, I had no reason to doubt him. Has anyone heard similar stories?
All the best - TJComment
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A rear view.Comment
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Here are a pair of Jaeger beret badges. Interestingly enough, as different looking as they are, they were both made by Overhoff & CO, Lüdenscheid ("oLc") .
TJComment
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Interestingly, a number of the flagless-badged berets came through eBay over the past few weeks, from the same vendor:
http://cgi.ebay.com/GERMAN-PARATROOP...item2563b89dc2
http://cgi.ebay.com/FALLSCHIRMJAEGER...item2563b89dc0
My initial impression was that one of these could be official issue, but the other one looked to be a (repro?) TR breast badge with the nasty bit removed (rather than a facsimile of the 1957 award):
Given what TJ reported above, could this denazified badge also be a private creation of one those Fallis who were dissatisfied with the quality of the issued badge?
Gene TComment
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Hi Gene T,
you can read it there:
"We have added a Quality Reproduction of the Paratroop Badge to the side of the Beret."
UweComment
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You are right, Uwe. I did not notice that this seller worded the two listings differently! He even priced the one with the original badge slightly higher than the other.
So this is a current repro after all - but it's a disfigured fake TR badge, rather than a replica of the earlier BW badge.
It looks like what TJ has shown may well be the only legitimate examples of privately purchased replacement badges.
Gene TComment
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Hi,
When I was in 1989 to the Airborne School of the German Fallschirmjäger in the Altenstadt
You could buy in the canteen three different badges without flag:
Black paint, chromed and extremely silver.
The badges were of heavier weight
All were in my battalion and how PROHIBITED I was told by an officer were the three tokens in the entire 1st Airborne prohibited.
We young paratrooper was very hot without the old eagle flag.
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Uncle Kurt - Did any of the badges on sale in the canteen look like the un-official one I posted in #8?
Gene T - Thanks for wading in!
All the best - TJComment
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