Naval Airship Badges

[stogieman]

More pix

reverse of a cased Prussian Pilot by Juncker

[stogieman]

On a roll now...

more archived images of my badges.

[stogieman]

One of my favorite fotos!

Love the cased badges, I do!

[stogieman]

Back of an observer

small, but the hallmarks are there

[stogieman]

Another example

Prussian Observer ray-back with hallmarks

[stogieman]

Real Observer, obverse

Nice Juncker Observer

[stogieman]

So, pull out the....

... "crown" badges and start comparing them to some of these examples. I think you will be very surprised at the differences in quality and details. The thing I recommend the absolute most, would be to find someone who owns some and get them in your hands. There is no substitute for actually handling the badges yourself. The differences that can look so compelling in a picture, will blow you away when you hold one of these gems in your hand.
Momma was right... "practice, practice, practice"

[stogieman]

additional examples

I have copies of Detlev Nieman's sold pilot badge images, but I will have to ask his permission before posting any of his images up. Also have to load them onto my web-storage and post the images through HTML as they are too big to upload to the site server. More later! Enjoy!
<p>

[Gary B]

Dear USGI,

Rick has some beautiful badges, esp the cased ones...

To give a brief backgound to you on the controversy (which I am not sure will ever be solved). There are 2 schools of thoughts and both sides are rather vehement in believing their views (sort of like the flawed die Knights Cross S& L controversy going on elsewhere in this website and another website) are correct and the other school are wrong.

Anyway. One school of thought is that the Half Moon, Crown 800 symbol were only used POST war. This group believes that only wartime Junker badges carried the Half moon and 800 mark. In their corner they have some of the most respected German dealers (Detlev Niemann, I believe is one of them) who report never having gotten a direct purchase owner or family owned badge with the Crown/half moon/800 mark. They also state that the quality of the Crown marked badges does not compare to those badges marked with just the half moon and 800. Additionally, the firm of J Wagner & son used the Crown/half moon/835 mark (note 835 as opposed to 800) in the early part of WWII/1940s to mark their Luftwaffe Honor Goblets, hence use of the Crown in POST WWI.

As for the other school of thought. They firmly believe that Crown/Half moon/800 marked badges ARE wartime badges....early war at that. On their side is the fact that a German/imperial decree in the late 1800s required that silver be marked with a Crown/half moon and the silver content mark. (I believe this was a royal decree in the late 1860s). As proof to their cause is the verfied Railroad Long Service pins by J. Wagner & Son which were made in the late 1800s/early 1900s that used a Crown/Half moon/silver content mark (Use of Crown PRE WWI). Additionally, this group refutes that it only makes sense that the crown marking was used during WWI since Germany was under imperial rule then AND that there was no use for the crown on badges after the war since the Kaiser had abdicated,therefore badges without the Crown are post war.

I think that the above is a pretty accurate summation of the argument. The one thing we can positivley state is that J Wagner used the Crown before WWI and after WWI (up to WWII when silver production for goblets ceased).

I, for one, think that the argument has focused too much on the pilot badge markings. I think there are clues in the Gunners badge that will perhaps add more fuel to the fire/shed light on the controversy.

The Pilot badge was insituted in 1913 and was made into the 30s/40s for wear by WWI vets. Silver badges were made throughout WWI and all the way up to WWII. Markings exist with the crown and w/o the crown. Therin lies the problem, since there is no date where one can compare post war with prewar.wartime badges. From a Pilot badge standpoint the 2 schools of thought seem to be at a draw. I would propose using the Gunner badge and its markings to assist in this debate. I put forth the following for thougth...or arguement....

Due to the late insititution date of the gunners badge, I believe all wartime issue gunner badges were non silver. The institution date of the gunners badge of 1918 falls after the German decree that Silver was a wartime precious metal and could not be used for trivial things such as production of badges. (If Richthofen, the top ace of the war, could not get silver for his victory cups, I seriously doubt that many silver badges were made after the decree, esp for a gunner) So I surmise that silver badges were made early in the war, hence too early for the Gunners badge to be made in Silver. I think that all wartime gunners badges are non silver. Anyway, we do see Gunners badges by the firm Junker produced in Silver. How can this be, based on the above statement? Well the easiest and agreed upon, and I think most logical explanation, is that these were post war private purchase pieces (after the war and lift of the limitation on the use of silver decree). How are these badges marked? With the crown/half moon and 800. This would only prove that Junker did mark post war pieces with a crown. Now does anyone out there have a Half moon/800 only marked Gunner badge? If so then this would help verify that the Half moon/800 mark was used post war (since we know that no Silver gunners badges were made DURING the war)

This statement alone does not prove that Junker Crown marked badges were ONLY made post WWI. It just shows that Junker did use the crown mark after WWI.

I will close for now and wait for response.

Gary B

[USGI]

Take the fact that no vets so far have had in their possesion a crown marked badge in itself is very solid evidence. With the Gunners badge info I think it is hard not to conclude that crowns were post war. I know from reading Imperial Honor Goblets were silver early in the war then made of iron in the later half. Has anyone seen the markings on the Imperial goblets from the early years?

[Gary B]

Dear USGI,

I agree that crowns were used post war by Junker (as evidenced by the Gunners badge) and Wagner (as evidenced by the WWII Honor Goblets of 1940).

We also have proof that the crowns were used pre war by Wagner (as eividenced by the RR Long Service Pins).

Unfortunately I know of no other badges (U-boat, Iron Cross, PLM etc) that, when marked for silver content, have anything else besides a Company logo and the silver content mark: 800 835 etc (i.e. no moon or crown)

I wonder what the WWI tank badges were marked with. They were a definite post war badge and I know some were made in silver.

Another badge that might shed light is the Zepplin badge that you opened this discussion with. Again a definite post WWI badge. Some of these are found in silver but then again are only marked with a silver content number. As far as the ones I have see reportedly made by Junker, these are only marked CEJ. I find this unusual since (if the theory of the POST WAR Junker/moon/crown/800 Marked is correct) we find NO Zepplin badges marked as such. Why would the Junker firm produce pilots badges in silver with the crown marking post war and then produce a zepplin badge not in silver and only marked CEJ??

Your question about the WWI Honor goblet is a good one and would shed some more light on this controversial subject.

There are many anomolies here...


G

[Tim Tezer]

And just to confuse the issue further....

Gary,

Here is some fodder for the fire:

First, your point about the gunners' badges is a good one, but the fact that there are Juncker marked pieces both with and without the crown doesn't mean much if some of those badges were not actually made by Juncker. In other words, those of us in the no crown camp will find that the majority of badges on the market not only have a crown, but have a serif on the J. The implication is that those badges are not merely post-war, but were made in the last 15 years or so, and not by C.E. Juncker.

Second, the claim by those in the "with-crown" camp that badges made pre-1918 should logically have a crown because it was the imperial era are missing some major bits of evidence. Although the crown hallmark was instituted in the 1860s, along with a purity grading standard of parts per 1000, niether of these standards is seen consistently on silver produced after that time. The two official issue types of 1870 Iron Cross 1st class were marked consistently by their makers - Wagner and Godet. Wagner marked all theirs with their name and the silver content "14 Loth.", and Godet marked theirs with just "Godet" incused in a box. Niether one of them used a crown hallmark. Neither one of them used an 875 or any other numerical silver content mark. So unfortunately the use of a crown or no use of a crown is entirely arbitrary.

What we no-crown Luddites are looking at is not the LOGIC behind the use of a crown, but the consistent application of the crown on pieces that we believe are counterfeit. Likewise, we tend to believe that the use of a serif on top of the J is a consistent characteristic of those same counterfeits, made by the same counterfeiter.

Tim

[McCulloh]

heres' one of Herr Parsivalfleiger wearing one in 1941:

[Gary B]

Dear Tamerlane,

All very valid points. I think the only thing we can say for sure is that Wagner was one of the few firms that followed the directive (almost) and used the crown before WWI and all the way up to WWII.

What I was hoping to see from some of the other members are marking of other known POST WWI badges that are marked for silver. Uboot and the Tank badge come to mind, esp the tank badge since this has a post war institution date.

I am also sure there are fakes that are marked with just the moon and 800.

Also I would like to know the number of direct vet acquired (or vet family acquired) pieces that dealers have obtained just marked with the moon and 800. I say this for the following reason: the arguments for the no Crown camp is that several big German dealers have never purchased a Crown marked badge from a vet or his family. This is a good fact but, the validity of such a statement is somewhat dependant on the number of pieces purchased directly from the vets/family. (I am just throwing out numbers here to make a point) If the dealers have only purchased 4 pieces from variousvets with no crown its really not a large enough data base to make any conclusive decision. One can only postulate that there is an indication that no crown pieces were issued during the war/but one can not inconclusively state that only no crown pieces were the only wartime pieces. On the other hand if the dealers had purchased 200 pilots badges from various vet/family, all of which have no crown then the validity of the arguement increases.

As another point of interest out of all the vet acquired groupings there must be some groupings with multiple pilot badges in them, both wartime and post war. It would be interesting to see the mix of markings in those groups. If you look at most WWII US aviation groupings and many WWII Germans who served the military beyond the war (and I am drawing on my WWII collecting experience here) they have wings/badges from WWII and post war. I could only assume that a WWI German pilot who was a member of the Freikorp or early Luftwaffe would have had to purchase additional badges (post war - some of which were WWI overstoacks and others that were post war manufactured) for his every day wear.

As my last point, I would say that we have to be cautious of what conclusion we draw from family vet groupings. I will use my fathers WWII aviation grouping as an example. For a long time the WWII Wing collecting community believed that most clutchback wings were post WWII. Pinback was the only accepted wartime wing. In my fathers grouping were 6 wings...1 issue set and 5 that were acquired later. One is pinback and 5 are clutchback. Most people would logically assume that the pinback was the issue piece and the clutchbacks were purchased later. This grouping would also support the given theory at the time. In REALITY the issue piece of 1943 was clutchback and the purchased piece was pinback (all were wartime, the other clutch back were wartime as well). The only reason I know this is that I, as a collector, specifically asked him about the pinback piece. Most vet family members would not ask such things.


Gary B

[USGI]

Der Rittmeister has a damaged Prussian pilot badge consistant with an air crash, low and behold it's marked moon 800. Has anyone handled a crash recovery badge, if so was it crown marked?