Bavarian pilot´s badge by Poellath

[Eric Stahlhut]

Yep, Tony (Kaiser, too!)

I was trying to figure out in my mind how a German manufacturer with that old German mindset would have thought during the Imperial era versus how a harried 3rd Reich manufacturer would have thought in the 40's. My initial impression is that the two thought processes may have been very different indeed.

We are writing about a family firm that has ostensibly been in business since 1778. During the 2nd Reich I have the gut feeling that manufacturers just might have had a bit more leeway in determining how their products were fabricated. Please bear in mind that there were probably far less guidlines set in place during the 2nd Reich, as long as they conformed to a certain set of stipulated dimensions. How else could one explain the very wide variety of Iron crosses available for consumption at the time?
Now one has to ask one's self how many other identified awards from WW1 were made by this maker? Not very many, if any at all.

Most of the items I have seen from this maker seem to stem from
the 20's or 30's, just like the firm of Paul Meybauer, who incidentally has also been quite extensively copied. A bewildering array of setups on the reverses of those flight badges as well.




It is my sincere conviction that the only TRULY AUTHENTIC AND EARLY PERIOD Bavarian Pilot or Observer badge is going to consist of a cliche piece with a cut out crown. Sometimes that crown can be found to have been added to an altered Prussian piece.

I know that this sounds kind of extreme. But you just might have to see one for yourself in order to believe it. I think that at best, these 'Silber' marked pieces came out during the latter part of the war.

Now I guess that it is up to the foto collectors to either graciously prove me incorrect ot to corrobate my theory. I dunno, but am anxious for anyone else's opinion.

[Tony & Kaiser]

They are Need and Want. Aye..they exist

Eric,
I agree with you completely that only an issued cliche (stamped) Bavarian Pilot or Observer badge is one we can be sure about. Ugh! I am <b> STILL</b> trying to find a Prussian pilot stamped badge for Kaiser's Bunker web site. So no, I do not see your comment as extreme at all. It is just economics, if the demand was there for silver badges that were mooocho prettier than the stamped issue one (we all at least agree on this, yes?) then a company is going to make badges to meet that need. So the silver badges exist, and fakers are too smart to botch a name so bad, so these spellings must be correct. The question is when, and why. I did like the explanation that Brett explained, it seemed to follow my thoughts on this. T http://www.kaisersbunker.com

[Eric Stahlhut]

Every point is valid for now,

but I'd really like to find some type of insignia other than a WW1 flight badge that has Karl Po"llath on it. These guys were in business for a long time, so if these are indeed legit pieces then we surely will be able to come up with some corrobating evidence in the form of a similarly hallmarked piece, no?

As Rick L. mentions it has to be something that we can place within a definite timeline. A dated Oktoberfest or Salvatorfest medallion would do the trick. Even a sporting award.

Of course the most disturbing thought to me is that this firm has quietly been churning out these awards themselves. Think about it: the ratio of these types versus the other known makers is staggering. One almost never sees badges by G.H. Osang or Po"ller which are also two known makers of these badges.

[Sonderkommando]

Here's some more fuel for the fire. I found on the net today a Dutch coin dealer with an antique catalogue for sale from 1908-1912 for "Carl Poellath" with samples of his medallions, etc. So it appears he was using the spelling "Carl Poellath" at least as early as 1908!
Heres a link to the page if it works, it's about halfway down.

http://www.nvva.nl/gysbers/c00979.htm

Now does this make the "Karl Pollath" badges bad?
I've emailed the company to see if and when they changed the company name and will let you know if I get a reply.

Regards,
Brett

[Eric Stahlhut]

And now for a brief interlude

Will the REAL Karl Po"llath please stand up!

Click here:Karl Po"llath

OK, seriously, now!

Here's a link to the Deutsches Museum's archives of firms:

Deutsches Museum

[Mike Kenny]

Hi,

Here's another one to add to the discussion. The maker mark is blurry due to the scan but in real life the letters are very crisp/sharp - the marking has the K and the Ö and each line has been applied separately imo.

I haven't had cause to question it's authenticity in the past - the obverse details and the quality seem way too high to me. I can't see any sort of casting marks either. If it's a repro, it's excellent.

Brett, re the catalogue, have you asked the seller for a scan of the name, just in case he's paraphrased with a more modern version of the maker's name?

I'll continue to follow this discussion with interest!

Regards
Mike K

PS: I'll load an obverse image if requested - I've only refrained as the reverse image seems more important to the discussion and Frank's original question was about a pilot's badge.

[Frank Heukemes]

Dear Mike,

Remarkable that in your case the city name comes before the firm´s name!

Cheers, Frank

[Sonderkommando]

Hi Mike,
I have just sent them an email and will let you know the result.
I must say that all the badges presented in this thread look superb and are on par with the top makers like Junkers, etc.
I'm hoping to get a Bavarian Pilots Badge one day to compliment my Prussian one. I just want to find out a bit more before I go ahead with a purchase.

Cheers,
Brett

[Tony & Kaiser]

Generalized assumptions

I think that we should not assume that Karl Pöllath and Carl Poellath are even the same company. Even Don Chalif's classic work of flight badges mentions two makers, a Pöllath and a Poellath. My Karl Pöllath Observer's badge was obtained in 1945 by a Canadian Soldier occupying Germany and then obtained by me, so no amount of assumption is going to change that fact. Just look at the quality of Frank's badge from the first page and my badge from page 2. And we are going to say one of these superb badges is bad based on some generalized assumption about spelling that we have no factual knowledge on?

This conversation has had one important effect on me, in that I used to dismiss Carl Poellath marked badges as being incorrect. I have examined badges marked with both spellings and both types are amazing quality, the manufacturing, the pins, the soldering, all outstanding. I just dismissed the Carl Poellath as being wrong. I am now quite convinced that we are talking about two companies Karl Pöllath and Carl Poellath and both are correct.

I want to make one important point. When you see a Bavarian badge on ebay, it does not matter what the marking is, Karl Pöllath or Carl Poellath, it is the quality. Almost <u>every</u> Bavarian flight badge I have seen on ebay has been crap. Lousy details, casting marks, rough and bumpy reverses, fat casted ribbing on the backing plate, big fat maker's marks hammered in to please the collector, these are what a collector should wary of, yet I keep seeing them sell. Tony

[Rick Research]

Shall we put poor Frank out of his misery and say that "his" badge is good?

(This is turning into a U.N. debate... but far more interesting and actually PRODUCTIVE! )

The riveted reverse Observer (guys with Pö/oellath observers: please REPOST your observer scans in the Pö/oellath Observer thread I started as Extreme Close Up, so all types of same maker of same badge can be in single threads, not that these HERE have not helped enormously, since this is a much broader subject now on the company itself)

And from that last scan from Mike, it is now obvious to me that EACH of the tiny hallmark lines was actually stamped on INDIVIDUALLY, accounting for the variation in centering.

Why, I can feel my brain growing!!!

Keep up the EXCELLENT work, friends!

My own thought would be that the "C" "oe" items we have seen (Mother's Cross, rivet back observer) are DEFINITELY datable to the THIRD REICH period. I've got a Bavarian Military Merit Cross replacement from the 1930s with a rivet holding the swords on instead of the threaded screw nut used on those earlier, and thanks to Paul Chepurko, also have 1930s dated medals catalog illustration showing the rivet on those crosses. I think it is safe to say that rivets like that are interwar period.

There do seem to be two distinct and uniform to each other types of reverses. As Tony said, this may have something to do with "deluxe" etc. perhaps one type is heftier by WEIGHT. I can't weigh mine, being without these sub-atomic particle scales most Third Reich badge collectors now seem to use. So silver weight may have something to do with it.

We are building up more examples for comparison, so now perhaps we need to establish a "typology"--

1) "Full rayed reverse" with lines going all the way to a center point

2) "Partial rayed reverse" with the rays only around the edges of a smooth center.

Do the "edge trenches" and "crown indentations" always match? ("bread loaf" crown on "Partial rays", "half circle" crown indentation on "Full rays"?) Are "K" " ö " pieces always of one type, while "C" "oe" are the other?

Regarding the thought that the company is reproducing their own products... I have never thought so. The ones that are NOT eCRap are all of a uniform quality that is no longer found. Think of the M1957 Third Reich awards being made, etc. The "old craftsmanship" just doesn't apply, with cutting corners, "good enough" attitude etc these days. I think, like any other Good Old Maker, their mark is simply mis-used on junk to trap the unwary.

They seem to have landed THE contract to produce Bavarian flying badges, hence these are what we see. Has anybody ever seen a NON-Pö/oellath Bavarian flying badge? Or one stamped out of silvered steel or tin like the "gubamint issue" Prussian ones? Might it not be entirely possible, given the dramatically smaller numbers of aerial Bavarians, that ALL their badges were in silver... even the 1918 Air Gunners Badge?

[Rick Research]

Aha! Looking at this and the Pöllath Observer badge thread, I have just "learned" something else:

the ones with the REALY thin, sharp, 90 degree angled crown crosses are all "Carl Poellath" with "full rays" reverse and "half circle" indented crown backs. The "Karl Pöllath" ones have a thicker, more rounded crown cross. So, now I can "see" reverses just by looking at the fronts! The crown cross should be a definitive characteristic.

Looking in Don Chalif's 1982 "Military Pilot & Aircrew Badges of the World," the ONLY three Bavarian badges he shows (p. 132) are ALL pierced crown types-- and every one of those has the square "Prussian blob" type crown cross. Since that book was more a checklist than modern collectors' guide, reverses of those B&W badge photos are not shown. (His Flyers' Commemorative is the now suspect "toucan bill" rather than "pigeon" type.)

Looking through Neal O'Connor's Bavaria volume, there are a number of "tall" crown crosses, but too indistinct to tell more than that. Several photos also appear to show badges with the cross sheared off of the orb. (See Pöllath Flyers' Commemorative Badge thread for a photo closeup from my collection.)

[Eric Stahlhut]

Methods of Marking Badges

So far, if I were to limit my experience to what I have seen so far on this Forum regarding the hallmarks is this:

there seemed to be two distinct ways of marking the badge. One way consisted of a set of three different semi-incuse style stamps whereupon the marks were applied separately by hand which can easily explain the discrepancies of conformity between the three individual marks. The other method seems to far more streamlined in the sense that all three lines were stamped simultaneously by a machine. The only problem with this theory is that I have already noticed that one specimen put forth for discussion seems to be out of order as far as the precedence of stamping is concerned. That fact in itself can easily shoot holes in any theory I would put forth.

There is another problem: the machine 'stamped' versions exist with both the 'C' and 'K'. Umlaut on the surname is included with the 'K'.

Please be reminded that further hallmark variations do exist. Hopefully someone out there will provide a pic or two.

Food for thought!

[Rick Research]

Tony sent me these x500% closeups of his Pilot's Badge, already seen earlier in this thread in x200% full front and back.

Here is the obverse of the crown. Note the thicker and more rounded top cross, which is for a "K" "Ö" "breadloaf" "semi-rayed" reverse type.

[Rick Research]

Closeup of the plane, showing details very plainly. How about a 500% of this from a "C" "OE" type?

[Rick Research]

"breadloaf" indentation on reverse of crown