Souval EK 1 Opinions

[Bcarver]

I just bought this and see that there has been some debate about these. based on these photos are these cross's wartime or post war. This has the low swaz, die flaw, dipping 3, magnetic core, and rounded arms.

[Bcarver]

After talking to Dietrich and a few others the consensus seems to be that although Souval did indeed make a lot of cross's postwar, wartime issued cross's exhibit characteristics that are important to note. Namely the frames and core will be Souval with all the expected traits, the post war made pieces have different combinations. So it appears that this cross and several like it posted on the forum are war time made pieces exhibiting all the same traits: Souval frame and most importantly the Souval core with dipping 3 and fat hk. The ones shown also have lines (scratches) up by the top of pin. I hope that sums it up.

[Tony T-S]

Nice cross actually, nice patina, and nice to have had it checked out too.

[Bcarver]

I am surprised this is a hard topic. We know Souval made issued pieces, so the issued pieces should all have something in common, but a few on here have come out and said most Souval EK1's are post war put together. As long as we know that they did make EK1's during the war, that is nonsense. Is it possible that some of the EKs are made after May 9th? I am sure they were, and there are some examples made well in to the 70's, but they exhibit traits that are easy to detect as post war made with (usually) wartime frames etc. I never really payed attention to Souvals until I bought this one. Unless I misunderstood something, these Souvals that have all the same traits (frame, core, pin set up) are wartime made pieces that should not come into question. And again, unless I missed something these cross's have been proven to have been awarded and worn during the war. The "minefield" members speak of is only because Souval did survive the war, and continued to make cross's up until the 70's, so it's impossible to tell if a style like this was made before May 8th or after May 9th up until the Souval stock was used up, thus the different type of pin on known post war pieces. We could actually say this about many of the items we collect, who is say the factory worker on that minty German Cross didn't complete the piece until May 15 before it was given out, does that make it a post war copy? I think not, but technically it was not awarded during the war.