Post war L/12's

[Dez H]

Ok lets back the truck up here a few feet, I don't like to quote people and potentially take things out of context however I feel this is strongly relevant. To quote Gordon from here:<O</O

<O</O

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...ht=Grand+Cross

Unfortunately Junckers GK tooling survived the war and was used to restrike them in the 60s/70s. These are idemtical to the wartime pattern and there is no real way to tell the wartime and postwar strikes apart.


The quality and workmanship was still there in their production and their finishing techniques. As Juncker produced everything from wound badges, EK’s, war badges, etc. what is to stop them doing the same thing? I am sure the people cranking out the awards were still the same workers as they had during the war so the techniques and finishing quality would have remained the same. <O</O

<O</O

[Brian S]

Aren't we talking RK's not GK's. I'd gladly pay a few hundred for one of those post war GK's.

[Dez H]

I thought we were talking all L/12, Juncker pieces?

[Glenn R]

Yes Dez, my original query was regarding all L/12 marks.

[Dez H]

No worries there Glenn, my points still stand, if Juncker could produce Grand Crosses as good as the wartime pieces, why couldn’t they do the same with any dies they had?
Do we have any information from period newspapers how extensive the damage to their facilities were? <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o></o>

<O</O

[DaveJ]

The Military Advisory had an article about the L/12 marked crosses about 12 years ago, I will try to find my copy,

Dave

[Brian S]

Yes Dez, my original query was regarding all L/12 marks.

It's not reasonable to say that the GK L/12's were made postwar so too then were the RK's.

Lumping "all L/12 marks" into one bucket of fakedom does not make sense?

If you had the L/12 dies, wouldn't it be prudent to produce them today with today's prices?

Are they showing up at shows in groups offered at below market prices to dealers? Wouldn't one of those dealers have the integrity to point this out? Or at least to point out another dealer who seems to have an unending supply of L/12's?

Nichts, nein, no.

[Glenn R]

I think the issue is not recently made items but if the dies and original materials still existed post war and were used then EK's RK's even GK's made with those materials would be indistinguishable. There are conceivable scenariaos where these stocks could have been used but equally the argument stands as to why not still produce them now. However this still leaves the question, are some of the items in circulation now post war pieces? I don't think that unless someone has a definitive answer we can be 100% confident.

[Dez H]

It's not reasonable to say that the GK L/12's were made postwar so too then were the RK's.

Lumping "all L/12 marks" into one bucket of fakedom does not make sense?

If you had the L/12 dies, wouldn't it be prudent to produce them today with today's prices?

Are they showing up at shows in groups offered at below market prices to dealers? Wouldn't one of those dealers have the integrity to point this out? Or at least to point out another dealer who seems to have an unending supply of L/12's?

Nichts, nein, no.

The dies could be anywhere, in someone's collections, thrown in the trash when Juncker closed up shop, who knows?

It makes absolutely no sense to say that because we aren't being flodded with L/12 pieces made on original tooling at the moment the dies still don't exist.

Read page 466 of Gordon's book, to sum it up here are the facts;

1, Juncker post war did produce L/12 marked GK's
2. Juncker borrowed the Godet RK's tooling and produced some RK's


At the moment anything else is pure opinion and not fact.

[Brian S]

Dez, I have NO problem with those statements regarding GK's.

I DO have a problem with those statements regarding RKs.

It is NOT reasonable to lump all L12's into this category of paranoia.

[Dez H]

[QUOTE=Brian S]Dez, I have NO problem with those statements regarding GK's.

I DO have a problem with those statements regarding RKs.

I never mentioned Juncker RK tooling post war, afterall if they had thier own dies why borrow Godet's?

QUOTE=Brian S]It is NOT reasonable to lump all L12's into this category of paranoia.

Why not?

[Brian S]

"Why not". I think it's an entirely different thread that would relate to a disbelief in any and all badges, medals, etc. because dies survived the war which naturally leads to the conclusion if you feel that way you might as well not be collecting which begs the question, "whatcha doing on this site?"

Dez, how many people have posted L/12's on this site???

For that matter how many people have posted round corner RK's? Damn bloody few. Over 3,000 attendees in these halls and where are all the L/12's and Round Corners?

Now how many dealers have the "REAL McCoy Grand Cross" on their web site? I could point to three at this moment.

If an item is faked, it shows up with MORE regularity than other awards in the same class. Purely a matter of faker economics. You don't make just one.

The comment above was about L/12's and I reacted strongly to lumping RK's in that bucket and I still do for the above reasons not to mention the above statement by you about borrowing Godet's dies.

[Luftm40]

I guess I have no reason to believe that the L12 RKs typically considered original are, in fact original. This particular award has been researched in excruciating detail. Supposedly (although I have never seen documentation) the dies that produced the "textbook" Juncker RK were destroyed in the war, hence the postwar use of borrowed dies for the RK. The question in my mind has always been with things like EK1s, clasps etc w/ L12 markings. If they restruck the higher awards (albeit using replacemnet dies for one of them), isn't reasonable to think that they might have produced other awards from the original dies with a level of quality equal to the GK? What about pilot badges and other awards? This isn't an attempt to incite paranoia...just logical questions to consider when spending large sums of money on something

[Brian S]

Again, you could place that kind of 'fear' into any and all badges. In my opinion, the burden rests on someone making the claim postwar fakes were struck of the original rather than trying to prove a negative.

Time to sell your collection there Andrew.


I will certainly admit that there exist some good attempts at creating various L/12 items; Spanish Crosses for one.

[USGI]

I'm new at much of this but I understand from reading a pre-45 Juncker L12 800 knights cross will have the cross hatching on the inner corners of the frame. I would suspect a Godet construction with L12 markings would be a dead givaway as post war. Bill Stump posted on a thread about GKs that the Juncker 60s made pieces were marked differently than war time (that doesn't mean they didn't make a few on the side identical to war time). Has anyone considered that in post war Germany making an identical cross as war time may not have mattered to them since collecting originals (at that time) wasn't as big of an enterprise as today?