Inscribed Godet EK1 w/ fangs

[Stepdale]

Hello,
I'm not the best photographer, but finally got a chance to take a few shots in some late afternoon soft sunlight, so hope they're not too bad. I got this cross about 12 years ago from an old theater in California. The theater had been closed since the 70s and they had a lot of military uniform items, and I watched them pull this and an Imperial BWB out of a drawer full of costume jewelry. Believe me, I bought both right away. Anyway, just wanted to finally show it to the folks here on the WAF.
Dale

[Stepdale]

b

[Stepdale]

c

[Stepdale]

last one

[gregM]

That's a killer cross
One I would be proud to own.

[Montgomery Burns]

the cross is fine and a very desirable cross.



hmmm something caught my aye

no patina within the inscription ,,,,,,,

but within the godet stamp there's clearly patina.

is it the lighting ?







.

[Valter Gorenc]

hmmm something caught my aye

no patina within the inscription ,,,,,,,

but within the godet stamp there's clearly patina.


.

That's what I noticed too, but didn't want to argue with experts...

[Stepdale]

Yes, it does not have a dark patina like the maker mark, but the engraving has a fine bronze/brass finish to it. Not sure if this was a film that only shows after the final silver finish was cut through, or if they applied a bronze finish into the engraving as I'm not an expert on these things. Either way, I have shown it to several EK collectors and all agree it's original to the cross, though we didn't discuss the fine details of the engraving work.
Dale

[Jelle M.]

Lovely cross, thanks for showing!

[Chris Boonzaier]

Very unusual that the inside of the engraving is so bright? Usually it is the same principle as poison gas... the patina collects in the engravings?

[streptile]

Holy cow, great cross.

Flat GODET•BERLIN EK1s with side hooks are very rare. The vast majority are vaulted. I've got no problem with the inscription but I'm no expert.

I would love to own this one.

[Stepdale]

Holy cow, great cross.

Flat GODET•BERLIN EK1s with side hooks are very rare. The vast majority are vaulted. I've got no problem with the inscription but I'm no expert.

I would love to own this one.

Yep, sorry, I had it at the SOS and meant to show it to you, but got pressed for time and only showed you my 1870 EK2 with 25 year bar. Jim got to see it, but I spent most of the show running around showing things to people and hardly even got a chance to shop for myself. If I make the show next year, I'll try to bring it.

I also don't know anything about engraving, but I'm pretty sure on the provenance for this. The theater was in Monterey and a lot of military had retired in the area. I saw a lot of US items from the 1870s up to WW2, including Admiral Spruance's dress pants from when he graduated at the naval Academy, a 10th CAV officer's dress tunic from the 1890s, and just a ton of dress uniform tunics, pants and hats. I didn't see any German uniform items but I wasn't the first to get there. I did ask the lady running the sale if she had any more military items like medals and she took me to the antique jewelry cabinet saying she had seen some german medals. This is what we finally pulled out, so I don't see much chance for someone to have added the engraving anytime recently. The theater had been closed up since the 70s, and it looked like all of the costume items were from the 50s and earlier, so I just don't see that it could have been done anytime after say 1955 or so, but who knows for sure? If I get a chance I'll try to hunt up some info on engraving techniques, but to me it looks as if the engraving was done with a very fine tool and then the incised area was coated with a fine bronze/brass wash, or the incision went through a now darkly tarnished silver outer wash and exposed the base metal beneath which didn't darken as much over the years.

Also, I know some guys are great at tracking down WW1 officers - anybody know who I could contact or where I could search for info?
Thanks,
Dale

[EK Hunter]

Wow! Not that’s certainly a top shelf cross…and in marvelous condition as well. I too would love to add it to my collection of Godets, regardless of the questions concerning the inscription. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Best,

Alex

[Kraal]

Hey!

The cross itself is rare and great, nothing new to add here, so let's talk about the engraving.

The engraving is clearly handmade in my opinion. The letters aren't straight, the scratches are often deeper and less deep and the space between the letters varies.

BUT.

First of all, no patina in the letters itself. Usually this is one of the very first spots where patina begins to develop, as it's not possible to rub it of or something like that, especially when the backside of the cross was rubbing up and down on the uniform, keeping the backside of the cross halfway clean of patina.

I have seen many engraved crosses and saved, say, the one or the other () of them in my databank. Genuie engravings don't show that type of style on the letters. It's a rather modern type of letter style I'd put into the 50s-70s comparing to documents of this time written by typewriters. You can find this style of engraving on many modern ebay ek-fakes with fake engraving as well.

On top of that, you have the typical fake basic datas on the cross.. Usually it is rank and name of the soldier and either his unit or the battleground where he earned the cross plus some kind of date.

It's not the fact that some soldier could not have put some datas of himself onto the cross. It's the combination of ALL the stuff that makes me think this engraving had been added afterwards.

Almost all engravings show no rank of the soldier, rather the combination name and date (often just date of the year), date and battleground or a combination of all the three. Some few engravings show the unit the soldier has served in, but that's very rare. Usually engravings from this time are handmade and show loopy letters.

I wouldn't trust this engraving. Personally I think it was added looooong post war, mainly for one of the following two reasons- from a collector or anchestor of the cross bearer to let his name and story don't fade away by time, or, what I suppose, to add some serious money ontop of a already rare type of cross.

Whatever you might think of the engraving, the cross itself is an absolute beauty I'd keep nontheless.

[Rich G]

It's a beautiful cross but I too am dubious of the engraving. I think if the cross is silver framed, the engraving would show patina in it. If the cross is not silver (maybe silverplated brass?) then the engraving would show dirt, at least, in it.

One other possibility is that the cross has been cleaned not that long ago and this is why the engraving looks so clean while the rest of the frame has toned again. It really doesn't take that long for silver to tarnish, I have seen it with several prussian EK1's that I have.