So you want to know about S&L Dk's?

[Andreas Klein]

Andreas, did Wild have a pile of unfinished badges lying around too? Or was it just pins and catches, etc.?

Yes, but please understand that the photos of that will be shown to the readers in a upcoming book for the first time.

If i would be skilful with a soldering bolt and had been allowed to take with me what we found we could flood the market with some "textbook" stuff.

But we don't need Wild at all. We allready have seen all that in the past:

Remember the war merit crosses from Deschler some years ago ... the prices for the first byers had been counted in kilograms because no one wanted to count the single badges.

The next is the FLL PAB find of last year ... i think we all have seen the pictures at militaria berlin and the pictures showed only the part which they bought. The hoard was at that time splitted up several times on german shows.

[Leroy]

Just last year (photo copyright by militaria-berlin.de). Bought in the 1950's from FLL and just stashed away by a collector. I guess S&L must have missed these.

[Andreas Klein]

Thanks Leroy for the photo ... just to underline the importance of this photo:

This is only the part militaria berlin bought after the hoard had been shown at several german shows and all the big names had allready bought their demand of it!

Btw i think the hoard came of a former LDO shop and not directly from FLL because the hoard contained badges of the following firms:

- FLL
- GWL
- SHuCo
- Förster&Barth

Some weeks ago a minor hoard was found in germany with IABs and PABs from Souval in LDO paper packets. It was found when an old house was demolished.

[Thomas Durante]

Hi guys,

Yes, I remember all those finds, fascinating stuff and no doubt there will still be some to be found. But if you notice with all of these "hoard" finds, the badges are complete with hardware, packaged and ready to go. Wouldn't this underline the point that some companies were in the middle of preparing orders when the war ended? If a company like Assmann didn't happen to be filling any orders in the last 2 weeks of the war, then I doubt they would have tons of unfinished badges just sitting around waiting to be "put together".

Andreas, I am very much looking forward to your book. No doubt some great discoveries you will have in there. Only wish it were going to be in English

Tom

[BassD]

it has not to do with S&L. But old balance sheets proof that Wernstein has years after the war under the russion occupation kilogramms of needles, cases etc of old stocks. And Wernstein was not a big factory with lot of workers. So if such a little firm has so much left over stocks i can only imagine what the firms like Assmann and other in Lüdenscheid must have in their stocks.

We must remember that days before the war ends the Präsidalkanzlei ordered thousands of woundbadges. They produce for the "1000 jährige Reich" so i have no doubt that in Lüdenscheid an other cities are enough awards for the demand. Not only completed awards, also half completed and component parts

[Andreas Klein]

Here is a part of a balance sheet of the firm Hugo Lang, Gablonz (PKZ Code 117) dated 05.01.1945 .... at this day they had 30.000 fully finished and ready to ship wound badges in stock.

Compared with JFS the firm of Hugo Lang was a dust particle in the maker history of Gablonz ...

[Nordmark]

The unused stock of Cupal (3071kg) in 1945 should let us have another look at the "early" war Cupal badges...




Daniel

[Andreas Klein]

We must remember that days before the war ends the Präsidalkanzlei ordered thousands of woundbadges. T

Hi Basti,

that's a nice understatement. Last weekend i stumpled over an PKZ letter in which they listed their ongoing and not finished orders from november 1944.

They had open orders for 1.050.000 black woundbadges ...

I would be really surprised if every badge was ready to ship at the end of the war and reached the soldiers.

[Thomas Durante]

Excellent information guys! This is great stuff, can't wait for the wound badge book! Basti, good to see you over here and contributing to this thread my friend!

Tom

[Chrvip68]

Nice doc Andreas, the 30.000 issues is for the black grade from the price-stock list, i'm wondering for the solid issues by this maker if exist because parts exists, i have a non magnetic pin with the mm underneath for use on solid WB from a period relacement...a bit off topic but i express my current feeling

[Andreas Klein]

Hi Chris,

i would really like to see the woundbadge you are talking about. Perhaps you can show it in the WB area?

[Leroy]

Nice to see others confirming the reality of what things were like at the end of the war.

The only way to confirm the truth is to do what Andreas and Bass have done, to talk with early collectors to see what their experiences were with being able to access material in the years following the war, and to review still-existing records to see the status of production at the end.

It is nice to thank Andreas and Bass for what they have done. It would be better to believe what they are telling us.

I am personally satisfied, from what I have seen and been told, that stocks were huge. If others continue to want to dispute this, that is their right.

[Thomas Durante]

Hi guys,

I can only agree, documents like this are invaluable and documenting them in books and forums like this thread will improve our knowledge base and advance the hobby.

As far as I am concerned, there are still a lot of unanswered questions here as far as why these barter boards are found with badges from other makers. This may not be a big question to some, but its little details like this that don't jive with the thought that each maker had plenty of leftover stock. And still a bigger question is why these barter boards are found with awards that some makers NEVER had a license or opportunity to make such as the Oaks, Swords or DKs. If these Ludenscheid makers never had orders for these, then how could there possibly be leftovers....

Tom

[Leroy]

And still a bigger question is why these barter boards are found with awards that some makers NEVER had a license or opportunity to make such as the Oaks, Swords or DKs. If these Ludenscheid makers never had orders for these, then how could there possibly be leftovers....

Tom

You better do a little more checking, Tom.

S&L certainly made the Oakleaves, and advertised them in their last catalog
(1941) and, even though the time frame before private sale was banned was short, certainly made the O&S as well. In fact, in the Der Adler article showing Marseille (and a couple others) receiving the Swords, the O&S pictured are clearly recognizable as S&L versions. Even von Manteuffel is pictured wearing the very style O&S (with elongated swords) found on the "boards", not awarded to him until 1944. Although the "official" supplier was Godet, S&L most assuredly made these products (including probably also sets for exhibits and shop displays), so to find them would not be unusual at all. As to the DK, there is really no traceable paperwork, so we have no idea if it did, or did not, receive an order from the PKZ. Same, however, for other suppliers, too. As Andreas has mentioned, no one really knows for sure what they were making, or what arrangements there were between S&L and other companies, towards the end of the war.

[George L]

Hey guys, glad to see this thread is still generating some great discussion!

Something I noticed on the DKiS posted on thread #30 is the tips of the silver starburst are very much there like my DkiS....but these are absent on the board sample mounted examples and my gold. Just an observation.

Tom, yes, makers like Souval did create post-war fakes for the collector market, but they are laughable as you know. Maybe S&L felt more compelled to manufacture a better quality fake??? Not sure still why they'd put all that effort into it when, compared to the post-war RK's, there's not a lot of these S&L DK's out there.

Speaking of RK's, Andreas reminded me of the 57 RKs that I forgot to mention earlier as I was focused solely on the DKs in that the 1st pattern 57 RK's had the "B type" frames. They could've created new ones from the start, but they just to use the damaged dies until they switched to the C type later....I guess this shows they used the same dies from earlier to make these later on. Could the same be said of the S&L DKs where they used parts/tooling from the end of war for the initial copies?

Tom,
I know the question was directed at George and he can certainly answer himself, but because you mentioned me, I felt compelled to (rudely) jump in.

When I said S&L didn't produce anything new, I meant that it was my feeling that the DK parts, at the very least, were already in existence at war's end, and all that was done was to put them together (which might explain the ugly rivets). I still feel, however, that at least some of these had, in fact, been completed before the war was over (by either S&L or someone else in Ludenscheid). That's all.
Best,
Leroy