Prinzen EK2 clasp

[Miro O]

Caught this prinzen clasp last year. Am I correct to suppose this is Deumer?

Miro

[Miro O]

More photos

[CMSgt]

spange

You are correct Deumer. Jim

[sanya13]

+1

[Miro O]

Thank you very much for confirmation. Is it known which materials were used for these? I had two of them and both different materials.

[ben bijker]

Early pieces, so both should be made from brass or Buntmetall.

[Jean-Claude]

Hi Miro

Two nice Deumer prinzen and a interesting thread for me.

I have a complete set in tombac (newe silber finish with yellowish undertones) but I also have a EK II full size spange that looks to be a Deumer but made of a different metal (buntmetal/nickle silver?) like your second prinzen because it doesnt have any brassy undertones to it, despite the age/wear. I havent seen a 1st class spange made that way yet but I guess there must be some

Nice find

JC

[Miro O]

Hi Miro

Two nice Deumer prinzen and a interesting thread for me.

I have a complete set in tombac (newe silber finish with yellowish undertones) but I also have a EK II full size spange that looks to be a Deumer but made of a different metal (buntmetal/nickle silver?) like your second prinzen because it doesnt have any brassy undertones to it, despite the age/wear. I havent seen a 1st class spange made that way yet but I guess there must be some

Nice find

JC

Hi Jean-Claude. Very nice set you have there. I completely agree with you, when one has a chance to compare these two clasps side by side, they are made of very different metal, indeed.

The silver wash on both pieces (which probably made them look totally or nearly identical) is heavily worn and what appears from under is completely different colour in both cases.

While the first one looks to be made of Buntmetall - which is a group name for all non-iron colourful metal, doesn´t matter if it is brass, tombac (brass with higher amount of copper), or nickel-silver (neusilber in german) - the second one stays silver without any yellowish undertones.

I recall seeing some solid silver clasps, but these were marked for silver content...

Miro

[Ian Hulley]

Both my Deumers look like this on the back ..





and my Mayer ..



And the fronts ..



Ian

[Jean-Claude]

Hi Jean-Claude. Very nice set you have there. I completely agree with you, when one has a chance to compare these two clasps side by side, they are made of very different metal, indeed.

The silver wash on both pieces (which probably made them look totally or nearly identical) is heavily worn and what appears from under is completely different colour in both cases.

While the first one looks to be made of Buntmetall - which is a group name for all non-iron colourful metal, doesn´t matter if it is brass, tombac (brass with higher amount of copper), or nickel-silver (neusilber in german) - the second one stays silver without any yellowish undertones.

I recall seeing some solid silver clasps, but these were marked for silver content...

Miro

Hi Miro

I can undestand why some may want to put them all in the same bag but for me nickel-silver (a copper/nickel alloy) is in a very different class than tombac (copper/zink) because it will never change colour and seems to hold the detail better despite wear.

To the best of my knowledge tombac had to be silver plated to hide the yellow colour before the white/silver wash was applied which means that both finishes would eventually wear out and expose the brassy base metal. Nickel-silver on the other hand is a natural silver colour so it didnt require the addtional silver plating to look silver: just the silver wash that would eventually wear out or tone with age but the base metal would remain silver. IMO nickel-silver is also a harder metal than tombac so it doesnt wear (and loose detail) as fast as tombac either.

I dont have any other spange examples to compare to but here are picts of 2 nickle-silver pilot badges that have been around and show wear. The black oxidized finish on the eagles and the frosted white finish on the wreaths is worn and toned but the underlying metal has no brassy colour showing through and the detail on the exposed high points is still very sharp (IMO)

Best regards

JC

[Miro O]

Thanks for your opinion, Jean-Claude. Next time when I will appear in my bank vault, I will take this bird for some examination.

Best, Miro