1957 oakleaves

[Alex W.]

Hello,

can anyone tell me the difference between the 1957 version of the oakleaves and the pre -45 one ? The look very similar to me, is there a way to tell the difference ?
thanks Alex

[Alex W.]

anyone ?

[Ed Tainton]

57 Oakleaves

Most of the so called 57 Oak leaves I have touched seem to have a very light coating of silver, If you rub hard it comes off and you can see the copper. IMO

[Gordon Williamson]

As well as the problem of differentiating between original wartime pieces and early 1957 pieces you have the problem that 57 pieces have been widely faked in Germany. These are usually castings, so put alongside an original will be around 5% smaller due to shrinkage. The oakleaves here are original early 57, the Oakleaves with Swords are fakes, cast from an original 57 as a master.

As the main producer of 57 awards, Steinhauer used the old tooling for their 57 Oakleaves so on early 57 pieces which were properly finished, they will by now have acquired 40+ years of age and tarnish and be almost impossible to tell apart from wartime originals.

Later pieces are easy to tell because of the very poor finishing.

[Peter Wiking]

Here is a possible 1957 with two glasstones that should not be there

Peter Wiking