Any Ideas on This Cross w/Swords (opinions appreciated) *

[speedytop]

Hi.

With the "much discussed problems" are meant the questions:
- will there be a basic allowance, to wear TR decorations in the future?
- if yes, which decorations will be allowed?
- should the allowed decorations be with or without the swastika/NS symbols/emblems?

The term "some manufacturers" is not limited to the Ruhr area.

With "commercially available"is meant the availability in a shop. The years before it was usual, to send pricelists to the intersted persons, they answered by mail, paid with a paymant form (e.g. Post), and the vendor sent the pieces.
The first public advertisments I could find early in 1952.
To think, that before no trade had been made, is misguided.

With "the most well known outlet/best known sales outlets" is only meant the Ruhr area.

Uwe

[Andreas Klein]

At first thank you to Uwe for bringing up these scans which is showing the full article of the Revue for the first time in a readable version.

To me we should translate and discuss part for part of it seperate because i have the strong feeling that we will have to re-think about several conclusions we made in the past about postwar production of german awards.

I have to underline everything in Uwe's statement above:

1.
the postwar production is not a S&L problem, we have to think about many more makers

2.
We know several retail sellers which were active after the war like Schiffer, Klietmann, Fleck or Sedlatzek.

3.
For me 1953 is not the beginning of the postwar prodction. Imo it has started shortly after the German Mark (DM) was introduced 1948/1949 and the market was able to buy something with real money.

4.
Imo we have a massive mix up of wartime leftover stocks, half finished wartime stuff, re-production in wartime quality and as last in line easier to spot new quality when we talk about the postwar market.

[Leroy]

With "commercially available"is meant the availability in a shop. The years before it was usual, to send pricelists to the intersted persons, they answered by mail, paid with a paymant form (e.g. Post), and the vendor sent the pieces.
The first public advertisments I could find early in 1952.
To think, that before no trade had been made, is misguided.

3.
For me 1953 is not the beginning of the postwar prodction. Imo it has started shortly after the German Mark (DM) was introduced 1948/1949 and the market was able to buy something with real money.

4.
Imo we have a massive mix up of wartime leftover stocks, half finished wartime stuff, re-production in wartime quality and as last in line easier to spot new quality when we talk about the postwar market.

Does "shortly after 1948/1949" mean 1950?

There seems to be conjecture and opinion here for which there is (once again) no real proof. I had really hoped for something more definitive. Perhaps this is part of the same "every collector in Germany knows" concept revealed by Hans Gunter in the recent threads on the SK. Now, before there were any "commercial sales" (meaning only - a new definition for me - sales in shops like in the backroom of the tobacconist Herr Knoth) there were pricelists sent out by companies (again, not just S&L at all) to interested parties (who had known to write the companies in the first place)? Does anyone have any of these pricelists? How big was this "in the dark" mail order trade back then? Big enough to induce firms to break the Allied-imposed law against new production and sale? (I know, I know, Uwe: postwar Germans were just like postwar Iraqis, when you judge the effectiveness of the authority exerted by the Allies - the same Allies who had suffered millions of casualties and liberated the concentration camps not too long before, and fought not a six week war but a six year one.) What was being sold? Any examples to show? "Wartime leftover stocks, half-finished wartime stuff, reproduction in wartime quality (note: the most explosive of all the categories ennumerated )..easier to spot new quality...". All together or should this list be considered as being in "sequential time order" (the exact parameters of which are totally unknown) of when something was available?

Where do you draw the line in this hobby? Even harder, and if Andreas and Uwe are correct that multiple manufacturers (and not just in the Ruhr area) would have been involved, how will you ever know, in the face of "reproduction in wartime quality", what is real? (By example, maybe Juncker will be excluded - and even that is not sure - but every other Ritterkreuz is now in doubt (unless you have ironclad provenance to the actual recipient - something which exists maybe once in every couple of hundred crosses. Remember that, by example, the postwar assembled "barter boards" from S&L contained unflawed "A" type crosses. Well, I guess "parts is parts".) The same applies to badges. (All of this, though, hopefully at least, excludes manufacturers unfortunate enough to be located in the Soviet Zone, so maybe we should just collect from those companies.)

If this is correct, the medal and badge part of this hobby for the average collector just sank like the Titanic. Congratulations.

[Andreas Klein]

Does "shortly after 1948/1949" mean 1950?

The earliest official sales list by a retail seller (not maker (!)) i've ever seen was printed and given out on 01.11.1951. Due to the fact that this printing was labeld as second edition i have no problems to believe in a start of a retail market in 1950. Please see the attached 8th edition of Eduard Schiffer's sales list given out in 1957 and than count back if we say one edition per year.

So 1949/1950 is my personal opinion but 01.11.1951 is waterproof.

The list had 266 (!) positions and contained every german award official issued and planed to be issued like the golden oakleafs to the knights cross or the warsaw battle shield.

I have no informations how the stocks for such a list had been filled. My personal opinion is that for common stuff like a wound badge or certain combat awards there had been enough leftover stocks but when it comes to rare stuff like a golden oak or a spanish cross with diamonds there was a need for makers in the background and a new production.

Speaking of makers:

I only rule out makers which had been totally destroyed in the war like the Pforzheim ones or makers coming from another business like the Oberstein area but for makers which had been always in award productions this was the only way of earning money.

[sdesember]

We must not exclude the bartering system that occured immediately after the war. The restart of the post-war production might not begin before the introduction of the new DM, but companies that still had unassembled wartime medals and badges might immediately enggage in a barter system with the occupation forces by assembling these wartime half-finished products, espcially those firms who did not suffer any bomb damage in the war. If we could pinpoint, for instance, the point in time of when the "935" St.u.L. Crosses were assembled, i.e., before the iintroduction of the new DM or before, it'd create a reference point of time.

[Thomas Durante]

If this is correct, the medal and badge part of this hobby for the average collector just sank like the Titanic. Congratulations.

Hi Gentry,

I don't think this will be the case at all. Many collectors have known for decades that some of their items in their collection might be postwar produced, especially the minty stuff...and especially when it comes to S&L badges. But as far as I can tell, that has never really been a deterrent, and minty badges only continue to climb in price and demand.

Threads like this bring us closer to the truth, and I for one am glad for it. That should always be our goal, no matter how it affects our collections. I have many badges in my collection, many from S&L that I am quite sure are postwar products. As disappointing as that is, I would rather know the truth about them and there is always the continued enjoyment of trying to find ways of telling wartime-made badges from postwar produced examples.

Tom

[Leroy]

Sorry I cannot agree, Tom.

I don't generally worry about pieces made of leftover parts, or pieces made which have different quality and finishing to wartime pieces, but I DO WORRY about the category now newly introduced by Andreas of "reproduction in wartime quality". Although in the other thread now running ("Postwar sale of war badges"), Andreas says he worries that the "mint stuff of today could be the early postwar production", I remind everyone that we are almost 70 years out from war's end. Even the material from "early postwar production" will have that age on it now.

[Thomas Durante]

Gentry, we are always still left with the same old question; how do you tell the difference between a badge made of leftover parts and one that was made postwar in wartime quality?

You can't

Tom

[speedytop]

Hi,

just as an addition, these are advertisments from 1951 and 1952:



Uwe

[sdesember]

This is very interesting, in post #144, the advertisements mentioned about Tauschen (exchange). Some of these ads might perhaps from collectors or dealers of militaria? Why would a producer want an exchange? Did this exchange happen during the war, too?

[Leroy]

Gentry, we are always still left with the same old question; how do you tell the difference between a badge made of leftover parts and one that was made postwar in wartime quality?

You can't

Tom

Many, many times you can. Rivets are sloppy, soldering is sloppy, finish (and finishing) doesn't match between parts.....

IF there is a "reproduction in wartime quality" (which I have never believed in before), there is big trouble here and no one can sugarcoat it. Just think of one company: Deumer. Dietrich has already suggested that Deumer (which of course survived the war unscathed) was the wartime manufacturer of the 3/4 ring RK. The Ludenscheid Archiv today, however, shows a Zimmermann cross as also being manufactured by Deumer (and an owner of Deumer was an owner of Godet, which used the same components as a Zimmermann). Deumer is also a prime suspect in the manufacture of the Schickle 1957 version RK (and a Schickle was found immediately postwar on a Deumer display card). That's one company which, just by itself, could have given us three different RK's as "reproduction in wartime quality". If this new proposal is true, none of these crosses will be considered safe to buy.

[Andreas Klein]

This is very interesting, in post #144, the advertisements mentioned about Tauschen (exchange). Some of these ads might perhaps from collectors or dealers of militaria? Why would a producer want an exchange? Did this exchange happen during the war, too?

Agreed ... and i smiled as i saw it. Please note the year when this ad was published - 1951 -. I wouldn't be surprised if at this date the selling of swaz related stuff had been a grey area (not allowed, perhaps forbidden, every eyes closed) so no one could official sell his stuff - and so they exchanged it.

[Andreas Klein]

Just think of one company: Deumer.

Hi Leroy,

we were told by Mr. Assmann that the Deumer tools had survived the war and were still present a few years ago .... but we were not able to check this information because they never allowed us to visit them or answered a letter from us but my personal opinion is that their stuff were untouched at the end of the war.

[Dietrich Maerz]

Why would a producer want an exchange? Did this exchange happen during the war, too?

You have to read the whole advertisement:

"Orders and medals of the 1. and 2. World War are looked after, sold,and traded memorabilia. Collectors and museums can replenish their stock continuously. Eduard Schiffer"

[Thomas Durante]

Many, many times you can. Rivets are sloppy, soldering is sloppy, finish (and finishing) doesn't match between parts.....

For this to be true Gentry, we would need a good, confirmable database of no-doubt, 100% verifiable originals and a similar database of no-doubt, 100% verifiable postwar-produced badges to make a logical comparison.

To date, the only author I know of that has done this job correctly is Dietrich in his RK book. He shows as many verifiable groupings as possible in an effort to prove "wartime produced" crosses. No other author has done this, including me admittedly. Most of the badges us authors show in our books as wartime originals are based largely on "consensus of collectors". No doubt that most of the badges we show are originals, but there should also be little doubt that some of them are very likely postwar produced.

Without a verifiable datebase of wartime versus postwar, we are still left at guessing what is wartime and what is postwar produced. Just because something has sloppy rivets or sloppery soldering doesn't make it postwar. As we know (or think we know), quality and materials were suffering the last few years of the war. So sloppy finish and sloppy rivets could very well mean "late war produced". And conversely, many of the early 1957er badges are of excellent quality, in both finish, rivetting and construction so there was still the knowledge and talent to create high quality badges long after the war was over.

Tom