Year of manufacture of this 1957 RK? Please help!

[Gernika81]

Hi everybody. Could anybody in this forum tell me the approx period of manufacture of the first 57 RK which is being sold in the e-stand by our friend DaveNZ? (I have his permission to do so )

Here's the link:

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=303366

I'd like to know it because I want to buy the first 57 RK for my collection, but before that it could be a good point to know whether it's from the 60s, 70s or 80s, isn't it?

By the way, I have some questions about the 57 Ritter Kreuzen.
Where these 57 ones officially worn by WW2 RK bearers after the war?
Why were they still being manufactured through those decades?

All your help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance!!!

[DavidM]

Hello

My best estimate is that the first posted 57 RK in the link is from the mid to late 1970's.

After the new form items were authorised in late 1957, several companies began, in varying degrees, to produce the new form items, with the very first pieces often being made using left over war time stock or original WW2 tooling and dies. Initially it is likely that the intended purchasers would be WW2 veterans. The regulations actual state that anyone could buy the new form items, but if you wanted to wear them, for example as a solider in the new Bunderswher or at a veterans march / reunion, you had to be able to prove entitlement to the original award. So yes, some of the 57 RKs will have been worn by veterans who were recipents in WW2, but others will have simply have been bought by collectors and never worn. This of course applies to some WW2 swastka'd RKs as well, as in some were awarded and given to recipents, and some ended the war still wrapped up at the factory or in a distribution store having never been awarded and issued.

Why are some 57 items still in production today? Very simply the companies that made, and still make the new form pieces, realised right back in the 1950's / early 1960's that there was a collectors market who would buy these pieces, including the Allied troops then occupying West Germany. Certainly S&L, in very limited way, are still making some of the 57 items today, and these are aimed virtually exclusively at the collectors market.

Nice collection that you have there.

Regards
David

[Gernika81]

Thank you very very much for your information David!
And thank you too for your kind words about my collection. It has grown a lot, but I'm too lazy to update my thread with new pics. However I will do someday...

[Military]

that being said, that such medals are still being produced today - can one purchase them directly from the makers? and how so? it'd be interesting to find out if its possible... thanks all.

[DavidM]

that being said, that such medals are still being produced today - can one purchase them directly from the makers? and how so? it'd be interesting to find out if its possible... thanks all.

Hello

Have a look inthis thread:

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=299392

in which I posted the details for Steinhauer und Luck.

Regards
David