RK vs. Honor Goblet

[FW 200]

I have read that many agree about 17,000 or so RK's were actually produced. I also have a newsletter which said about 16,000 Luft. Honor Goblets were made. Is it just me, or does it seem that there are far more RK's around than Goblets for sale if the quantities of each were even remotely the same?

[willy]

Don't forget that a lot of silver was melted down in 1981 $800.00 an Oz. at that time, I personally think that is the fate of many as well as Honor Rings and anything else made of silver.

[George Stimson]

$800 for an ounce of silver in 1981? Are you sure about that? (Gold is only $524 an ounce, today!)

[George Stimson]

Another question

Were 16,000 honor goblets made or were that many awarded, some of them just on paper?

[coastie]

$800 for an ounce of silver in 1981? Are you sure about that? (Gold is only $524 an ounce, today!)

The most silver traded for in 1980 was $54.00 per ounce at the same time gold peaked (london market) around $850.00.

Still a lot of historical silver pieces went to the melting pot.

[Waffenreich]

I sold a very nice coin collection in about 1 week due to the spike and have since often wished I would have bought TR militaria with the proceeds rather than Zeppelin, Sabbath, and Hendrix albums.

[FW 200]

actual numbers made: goblets

Here is the info I have, George. It consists of a couple of pages. The important part is: " Although 58,000 goblets were bestowed, the Bundesarchiv at Kornelimunster estimates that 13,000 to 15,000 were actually presented". So when I scan all the websites selling this kind of stuff, and read these forums, the vastly larger numbers of RK's available seems curious to me. So too are similar personal observations from going to militaria shows.

[Luftm40]

I think it is very difficult to draw conclusions from the facts you quote for several reasons. Goblets were named, and made more or less specifically for an individual while RKs were produced in quantity and stored, to be bestowed as required. How many unnamed generic goblets have you ever seen? I truly don't think we have a clue how many RKs were actually made during the war...I think 17K is probably just a guess based on a proportion to the amount awarded. Secondly, RKs...either pulled from a uniform or taken from a store room, were more likely to come back as souveniers owing to their small size and "sex appeal". I would guess that the majority of the awarded goblets went home to Mom and Dad in Germany for safe keeping, and then who knows where after the war.

[George Stimson]

Thank you for the clarification on the awards numbers, FW.

[willy]

Your're right gold was $800 & silver was $54.00 an Oz. still a lot of silver went to the smelter back then.

[Stijn David]

RK versus Honour goblets

Hello,


Very interesting thinking arround here, i just want to add a few drops to ponder over.

*) not all honour goblets where made out of real silver, only the early ones are real silver. the mass of them are Alpacka (check out the superb forum article by Francois)

*) to reproduce a honour goblet to near perfectness it is a much much harder then to reproduce a KC.

*) it is not because a mass of KC do pop up here and there that they all are original.

Just my 2 Cents worth.

Cordial greetings,

[willy]

Good point, it could be that many KCs are post war assembled or restikes. This could explain the high ratio of KCs to Goblets.

[Bob Coleman]

One must also remember that Ehrenpokal were individual one of a kind objects. Ritterkreuztrager could possibly have several copies of the decoration. The higher the rank, the more likely the recipient had multiple copies of the award.
Bob

[FW 200]

RK numbers

Previtera's book lists 7300 plus est. production. Now if each soldier recieved one, then bought a second, and half bought a third, with 2000 in reserve, we are at about 20,000 total. This leaves a slightly larger total than the ehernpokal production. It just seems to me that the numbers I see being traded should be a much closer ratio than has been my observation.