Naval Airship Badges

[Gary B]

Gary, what about these two badges suggest they are designed by the same maker? I ask respectfully because I am unable to make it a logical leap that they were made by the same designer.

Dear Brian S,

I refer you to Gordon Williamson's U boot site (moderator for one of the sites here). I tried to cut and paste his example of a Schot U boot badge but was unsuccessful (you can get to the site by doing a search on Gordon Williamson). Anyway, if you go to that website you will see his explanation of the Schott U-boot marked badge & a picture of the reverse (with the faulted T). To summarize; it is believed that the Walter Schot marked U boot badges were in fact not made by Walter Schott but by the C.E. Junker firm. The stamping of the Walter Schot name was just a reflection of the original designer. My logic led me to the assumption that if the U boot badges were marked with the "designer of the badge" that your Schot marked airship badge was marked in the same manner, by the designer of the badge.

Gary B

[Brian S]

"fec", Latin for "fecit" meaning "made it."
Tim

Too much is unknown about these badges. I was trying to find some commonality on construction or design. I found none.

On the one I posted, I do not like the letters looking so perfect. Almost typewriter or modern letters as opposed to engraved. The uboot letters are hand crafted but these are not.

With regard to "who made it";

Diabolus fecit, ut id facerem!

[Gary B]

[QUOTE=Bobby lee]Hi Gary, You are using a "T" test on Schot badges? Where did that come from? Based on what? Surely you don't suggest we use a badge on ebay as a benchmark. What makes it any more original than the items from Latvia? As I said assuming is what we have, not hard data.


Hi Bobby Lee,

I was not suggesting that you use the T test on your Zepplin badge. I was only elaborating on what the T test was that some of the other members were speaking of. The T test is often used to determine the originality of Schot marked U boot badges.

As I mentioned in my previous thread to Brian S, if you look at Gordon Williamsons website, he offers a brief explanation of the T markings for Schot, as well as a picture of the reverse of a Schot marked U boot badge.

I am not sure what ebay badge you are referring to but can only assume someone was selling a badge and used the T test to prove originality. Additionally, I do agree with you that there are obviously more than one stamp for this mark and that the same one was not necessarily used on the U Boot badge & Navy Zep badge.

As an aside I once handled a Zep badge that was made by a small firm in Saxony.

Hope this clarifies things.

Gary B

[Brian S]

My summation: I hope both these zep badges are good. I want to own a real one and if we can establish provenance on what's a truly established zep badge, I'd love to own one. The fakers have hurt us badly by creating badges where we have little provenance. We are inclined to believe because we want to believe so we buy and then we defend our treasures. I've done it countless times... But now, my money only goes for items with established benchmarks of reality. With provenance items go for considerably more money but in the long run, I end up spending less. I really like the looks of both the zeps, I just have no idea what is correct here.

[Tim Tezer]

Hi Tim, with all due respect, you are certainly entitled to your opinion, as noted before, but what is your data to support your observation of which badge is correct? Where did you get the information on T's or for that matter anything else stamped on these badges? All I see is opinions, not hard facts. All I am saying is that responsible collectors who are interested in facts and reliability ought to take care who or what they support without evidence. I have seen too many mistakes over the past 30 years because someone says aomething and it becomes conventional wisdom, it becomes true without the rigerous review that professioal researchers use. To use examples from unknown sources or heavens protect us, Ebay fakes, is not reliable, hence opinion and that is what we call it.

Admittedly, it's almost impossible to come up with hard facts. Unless you can invent a time machine (which you can't - impossible) you're not going to be able to go back and ask the people who made these things what they're supposed to look like.

On the other hand, any badge marked "Walter Schot foc" is a fake. It's misspelled, and that, to me, is a fact that can't be ignored. The use of the abbreviation "fec" for the Latin word "fecit" goes back to Roman times. It can be seen on medieval swords, old master paintings, and any number of other things made during the millenium and a half (or more) that Latin was used as an international language. You can postulate all you want, but it is impossible for me to believe that any company would produce a maker's mark with a misspelling in it. It is NOT a matter of variations in spelling conventions, either. It is simply that some faker was a doofus and couldn't read, or he intentionally did it so he could laugh at the suckers who bought his badges.

By studying the obverse of the items that we KNOW are fakes because of the misspelled maker's mark, and comparing the die characteristics to the others that are out there, I came to this conclusion. I will work on retreiving the pictures in a day or so, and posting them so I can point out the die characteristics I'm looking at.

After all is said and done, it's just my opinion. If that isn't enough of a "rigorous review," then I apologize in advance. But I didn't just pull it out of thin air. I worked on it. I couldn't afford to hire "professional researchers" to do this for me. I just had to figure it out for myself.

Tim

[Tim Tezer]

OK, first of all I want to apologize for the tone of my last posting. I just re-read it and even I think I sounded kind of bitchy. I didn't intend for it to come out that way.

To do my best to answer Bobby Lee's point, (and hopefully get something useful out of this discussion, even if has wandered away from the original topic), I'm going to post what photos I could find to illustrate my argument.

1st, A photo of what I contend is a known fake:

[Tim Tezer]

And now the reason why I contend that it's a fake: the maker's mark.

[Tim Tezer]

Next, this picture is the obverse of a badge from a "prominent online auction house" which has a badly darkened area on it, possibly from poorly handled chemicals used to age it prematurely. This is the same badge whose makers mark I posted several posts ago stating that it was a fake mark. Notice the similarity to the known fake above? They seem virtually identical.

[Tim Tezer]

Lastly, as a comparison piece, the one posted in another thread several months ago by Gordon Williamson. This is identical to the one pictured in Detlev Niemann's book, and is also identical (as far as I can remember) to one that I saw in an identified U-boat group several years ago. I circled a couple of points of comparison that differ completely from the badges shown above. There are others I haven't pointed out.

Apologies to Gordon for swiping his photo.

[Tim Tezer]

Lastly, I will admit that I am going along with Gordon Williamson and Detlev Niemann to a large extent here, and that my conclusions may be more subjective than I realize. But I have made an effort to prove something, for what it's worth.

I think it would be great if there were, as Bobby said, professional researchers working on this stuff, but sadly there are none in this field. The people that do the research are the collectors and the dealers, and the people who use this forum. This forum IS the rigorous review that we badly need. This is as good as it gets.

Tim

[Brian S]

That's the bottom line Tim. Right on.

Try to own at least one good one, examine and learn. I learned a lot from this old girl.

[Bobby lee]

Hi Tim, I'm not sure what part of my threads you were attempting to address concerning a mis-spelling on a hallmark. I never addressed mis-spelled words which, most would agree, certainly raises red flags! Nor did I suggest professional researchers take a look at this problem. I do suggest we use professional methods in our approach to discussing "real or fake" types of questions. Sometimes the use of logic is useful. But to throw around opinions as if one is the only source of knowledge and without backing up an observation with facts is not professional. Opinion is fine and I am glad I am seeing the use of that term more often. We must always be careful in using "dealer" opinions as there is an inherent conflict of interest in "dealers" passing judgement on an item they are not buying. Not to say there are not honest dealers but I have seen dealers highly mentioned in this forum who have listed items incorrectly. No one person knows it all. Finally, to use one badge or medal to compare to another for authenticity, one must be able to demonstrate the first badge's originality. Otherwise, we would all be better served if it is clear we are using our opinion and not some supposed oracle.

Good hunting to all!

[Bobby lee]

For those still interested, here is a current ebay listing. Anyone care to evaluate this little darling?

[Bobby lee]

Reverse

[Bobby lee]

Note those hallmarks!