My 3rd Pour le Merite .... finally a textbook one

[luftkrieg]

Fantastic piece Rüdiger! Congratulations!

Best regards
Pierce

[David Hawkins]

Wunderbar, sehr schön.

[Unfront]

It just goes to show you that there is a lot more to learn about these things!

A textbook bronze S&L there. Thanks for the comparison shots. Made me pull mine out to take a closer look. I think mine is the thinner version. The ribbon is 60mm.

[Seewolf]

Many thanks my friends

Steve, indeed this is the ebay one. We were bidding at the same time ..... more or less a few seconds between us. But the ending price was still fantastic and so i don´t mind about a few Euro´s


ethreecee, thanks for the correction. In Germany we say avers and i thought i could use the same term in english.

I think that all these "textbook" ones have the small die and the later versions use the thicker die. These ones have not the flawed eagle. Note that the enamel on the later ones is obverse thicker and has a slight pillow effect. A feature that is not the case on the thin versions.
Can´t be seen on the pic but the color of all 3 versions is the same, no differences. So i think that S&L never changed the "receipt" of the enamel and way of enameling.

I was longer thinking if maybe the unflawed versions could be earlier but know i know that the "textbook" versions are earlier.


I had very much fun in doing all these comparisons and it really opened my eyes about these. We all learned much more about these in the last few months.

IMO these PLM´s are the only collectable postwar made ones. They look so great in display and are an enrichment for every collection

[Nigel N]

Hi Rudiger!
I couldn't agree more with what you have said!!
These postwar S&L PLM's are great, and have been sadly overlooked up to recently, we have learnt more about them in the past few months, than in the many years before!!
The blue colour of the enamel does appear to be the same on all of the PLM's we have seen by S&L, if they are 50's, 60's, or 70's the colour seems unchanged!!!
-Nigel

[Unfront]

Judging by the bidding activity I have seen on eBay for these, and this one was no exception - I think people are really starting to appreciate these and regard them as more that a mere "repro". Given that PlM awardees did in fact wear these Post WWII, I think they are indeed deserving a higher regard.


Rüdiger, I am curious, what would lead you to believe that the thicker crosses are later version? (This concept is new to me - I would not know.)

[Seewolf]

Well, my 2 thicker versions have the unflawed eagle and on very good close ups you can see where S&L repaired the die. And on both pieces the suspension is not that well made as on my early version. We know from S&L that on later versions of 57ers they did not worked as well as in the early days ( finish, cut outs, details).

[Matthieu]

Holy smokes ..... you are on fire .... yet another fine specimen .
Seems everyone can locate one besides me ....

[jonathancol]

You and me both Matthieu!

[Tony T-S]

Yes, I haven't seen any either

[Tom B]

There were several PLM's at the SOS, but I have no idea on what type they were. Some had some pretty high prices !!!!!! Tom