RK for Newbies Part Four Difficulty HIGH

[Sonderkommando]

At first glance it looks okay with the legit rounded inner corners and not just "filed round" inner corners but personally I wouldn't touch it as the outer corners where the beading meets is attrocious! (just look at the bottom corner of the 3 o'clock arm both front and rear). The die-cutters workmanship just isn't there. Even basic EK1's get this outer corner beading right (with the exception of "26" marked pieces, and I have my own feelings about these crosses) and on an RK I would expect better.
Unfortunately the wartime pics just don't have enough detail to make a firm statement about anything.
I give the pictured RK a thumbs down but reserve the right to keep an open mind as I believe that there may be original round cornered RK's in existence.
In this day and age as true original items are so hard to find, we want to believe things are acceptable when in reality they simply are un-acceptable.

Regards,
Brett

[Dave Kane]

DM...#13 in the lower right photo is just a poor 'addition' or 'painted' to the negative example...heck it's almost the size of a GC!! And, he ain't the Fat Man!!


Dave

[Dietrich Maerz]

No Dave, I think that this comes from the angle the picture of the picture was taken.

[Brian S]

Guys! Now let the newbies try to figure it out and get some new conclusions.

Newbies, RK's photos were doctored by the War Ministry for propaganda purposes.

[Brian S]

Opinions PLEEESE

[translator]

Guys! Now let the newbies try to figure it out and get some new conclusions.

Newbies, RK's photos were doctored by the War Ministry for propaganda purposes. For example, this is a photo of my great uncle who was killed at Stalingrad and never held his RK. The War Ministry took a photo of a real RK and placed it over a photo they had of him for inclusion in their publications. From the original photo you can clearly see it's a photo and not a drawing of the RK.

Notice for this black and white photo they didn't even bother with a ribbon. In color(ized) photos the ribbon would have been colored in artificially.

Brian,

I didn't know you had an uncle who was killed at Stalingrad...a friend of mine who works at Hermann Historica in Munich, Tom Rief, told me that his father was one of the last wounded men to leave the Kessel, three days before the airstrips were forever closed down...if this event had not occurred, then my friend Tom Rief would no doubt not exist today....

Tom S.

[Peter Wiking]

On the EK posted, the year numbers 1939 and 1813 is slanting to the left.
I can not see that in the war time photos posted. Apart from that it looks good.

Peter Wiking

[Pascal H.]

.......................................

Here is a page from the famous period magazine called "Signal". Some have advanced the theory, that this is indeed the "round corner rk".

Brian, I was under the impression that last time we discussed the Signal RK we agreed that the Signal RK was NOT the "round corner RK".

Pascal

[Brian S]

Not me, I still think it is. Look at the blowups of the cross hatching above, not a Juncker, no #'s.

[Pascal H.]

OK fair enough. I am not going to discuss the Signal RK again without any new evidence. I think we discussed the Signal RK extensively last time. My opinion on Signal RK is that is definitely a Juncker.

Pascal

[Brian S]

So much for a newbie discussion...

For in case any of you are actually left looking, here is an intense closeup of the Signal core.

Where do you or don't you see cross hatching, all four corners? Clear enough? Or not clear enough to say?

[Brian S]

Here is an intense closeup of the Juncker core. Notice ALL corners are cross hatched.

[Brian S]

And finally the round corner. Notice some corners are cross hatched, some are not.

[Pascal H.]

I have to admit that last time we did not look at the cross hatching of the Signal RK for the simple reason that the Signal picture is much to unsharp to come to a conclusion if there is any cross hatching or not.

We “only” looked and compared the ring, the beading, the date and the curvation of the arms. After we compared all these aspects we could only come to the conclusion that the Juncker RK was the most likely RK to be pictured in the Signal publication.

Pascal<O

[Sal Williams]

Hi Brian,
I really like these threads of yours,but I just don't know enough to say anything valid about this subject. I really appreciate these threads though
Best, Sal