Scanning Electron Microscope for Imperial Awards

[Marc Garlasco]

All,

You may have seen the cutting-edge work Tom Hansen has done in the crosses section. Using a Scanning Electron Microscope he has been able to determine the composition of the Knight's Cross and EK2 made by Klein & Quenzner.

I will be using a SEM in early Feb to test some of my EKs against known fakes. In addition to an RK and WW2 EK1 I will test my 1870 Wagner EK1 and a 1914 EK1 (though I am not sure which maker yet).

Interestingly the Dr. I am working with said he can also analyze enamel. This opens up a whole world of potential!

I would love to hear your ideas about testing Imperial awards. Note that due to time I will be very limited in the first tests I perform, so please send ideas that we can build upon. I hope that scientific research can put to rest some of the guesswork. But this is only a supplement, and not a replacement to our tarditional study.

Regards,
Marc

[gregM]

Hi Marc,

I have been reading the thread that Tom started and it is VERY interesting and can be used to help all of us. Maybe this can help with some of our concerns
about 1870 EKs. It would really be interesting if some known (awarded ) 1870 EKs were tested against some of our more questionable ones like those with the odd 9th bead. I doubt it would help to tell the difference between 1870 pieces
and 1895 pieces and probably not even those pieces made post ww1 unless there was change in paint make-up between 1870 and say 1920s.

Every little bit of knowledge helps.

Greg

[Theodor]

It would be interesting to compare the temperature of metal-melting of a real RK and a fake...