Gordon Williamson speaks of the EKII:
" In reality, of course, it is more than likely that crosses would be made up in small batches to fill orders from the Prasidialkanzlei (possibly for no more than a few hundred crosses at a time). It would not be economically viable, however, for a firm to set up a press to run off, say, 200 frames (possibly as little as 10-15 minutes production time), so they would most likely run off bigger batches and keep them in storage awaiting orders from the Chancellery.
The numbers involved, and the method of production means that it is extremely unlikely that any firm would have a second set of dies (which would be expensive and time consuming to make), or be required to sub-contract out parts of the manufacturing process to other firms when considering a rare award such as the Knight's Cross. But this may well have happened with lower grades such as the Second Class which were manufactured in great numbers.
Bear in mind that we are looking at a wartime economy where the production of additional sets of tooling at considerable cost in both man hours and resources, to allow sub-contracting of manufacture of pieces which are made in low volume, is illogical. No hard documentary evidence has emerged to suggest that this was done for any other than the more common awards.
The sad fact remains that if a particular rare or desirable award which purports to be by a specific manufacturer displays die characteristics different to known originals by the same maker, then the most likely cause for this is that the variant piece is in fact not original."
" In reality, of course, it is more than likely that crosses would be made up in small batches to fill orders from the Prasidialkanzlei (possibly for no more than a few hundred crosses at a time). It would not be economically viable, however, for a firm to set up a press to run off, say, 200 frames (possibly as little as 10-15 minutes production time), so they would most likely run off bigger batches and keep them in storage awaiting orders from the Chancellery.
The numbers involved, and the method of production means that it is extremely unlikely that any firm would have a second set of dies (which would be expensive and time consuming to make), or be required to sub-contract out parts of the manufacturing process to other firms when considering a rare award such as the Knight's Cross. But this may well have happened with lower grades such as the Second Class which were manufactured in great numbers.
Bear in mind that we are looking at a wartime economy where the production of additional sets of tooling at considerable cost in both man hours and resources, to allow sub-contracting of manufacture of pieces which are made in low volume, is illogical. No hard documentary evidence has emerged to suggest that this was done for any other than the more common awards.
The sad fact remains that if a particular rare or desirable award which purports to be by a specific manufacturer displays die characteristics different to known originals by the same maker, then the most likely cause for this is that the variant piece is in fact not original."
... 
Hi Danny :
Comment