Who made this KvK 2 ?

[Douglas 5]

Obtained in the early 70s this KvK 2 . Seller indicated it was 'copper metal' and marked 11 .
I went along with that until I joined here and by comparing and learning over time - that it is not what I was told it was .
It is not marked 11 - it has no 'upstroke' on the 1 . It has 2 stamped in ridges/notches - very similar as seen on reverse of some black wound badges .
After various emails I finally gave in and had removed a mini-area on one inside arm tip to reveal what it is made of ....... appears to be solid tombak with a bronze wash on it .

wikipedia.org/wiki/Tombac
Tombac, as it is spelled in French, or tombak, is a brass alloy with high copper content 70 - 90 % and 5–20% zinc content. Tin, lead or arsenic may be added for colouration .
For the longest time the reddish oxide made it quit convincingly look like a copper core .

As a recent post has shown these tombac KVKs can be unmarked and marked . A lot of work on identifying these makers has taken place since then with different dot patern style -
Dietrich is using the dot pattern method for identification - I tried something different (the Daisy) but since have given up on it .
I once again put it up with new pictures to see if a maker can be determined now or what the 'mark' is in the ribbon ring ... incomplete number or letter ??

To aid with this some data :
5.14 mm thick
Horizontal X vertical : 49.05 X 48.71
23.2 grams
More pictures on request .

Cheers, Douglas

[Douglas 5]

Her is marking on the ribbon ring .
Maybe some one can identify it or has the same KvK marked that matches .
To note : The jump ring is mounted forward - not even in the center .
More pictures on request .

Douglas

[Hank C.]

To my untrained eyes, that could just be a random ding in the ring. Not everything is a maker mark. But who knows - I could well be wrong.

best
Hank

[Douglas 5]

I have looked at it to see if it could be - a ding or tool mark - which there are but just on the surface .
The top close up shows the symmetry and depth better ... I tend to think it being intentional .

Douglas

[BMB]

Hi Douglas!
Carl Poellath is a good candidate, I think, or maybe a Deschler.

Martin

[Douglas 5]

Ok Martin ... will see if I can pull up some examples to compare with .
The bronze wash is unusually thick on this example and obscures the true appearance . The stippling is actually very crisp and detailed .
Most tombak pieces posted here recently have no coating . Either never made with one or polished away a long time ago .

This example has 2 flaw lines .
That said it seams this flaw may be of limited use as this feature is probably specific to this one production die only .
It only shows up at the right angle and aimed lighting .

Douglas

[Douglas 5]

Difficult to find a Deschler KvK2 . The only I could enlarge is not good picture quality but the flaws on the date side looks possible .
What I need is a good picture of a Deschler KvK2 1939 date if some one has one .

Douglas

[BMB]

Hi Douglas!
I really like your ambision, thank you for you take our collecting further.

Best Regards
Martin

[Ronny.R]

Here are two Deschler.

First cross is from the hoard


Cheers,
Ronny

[5tefan]

I would go also for Deschler.

http://www.kvk2-dna.de/1--deschler--...-muenchen.html

[Douglas 5]

Just to remark to the finish of these different tombac KvKs .
Not sure if the last shown Deschlers have a treated surface to make them look so uniform in color ?
The owners may know if they are . Finding any with the same kind of coating/treatment has been difficult .

I thought it may be worth noting that some early EKs with tombac cores had the same surface coating as my KvK 2 .
Showing below an early W&L tombac core EK1 with that same coating before it was painted .
Seams to be a labour intensive early coating method instead of oxidizing the surface .

Douglas

[Douglas 5]

I now did a comparison with Ronny's Deschlers and went back to the old study I did some time a go using the 'Daisy ' Method .
Don't laugh ... some ago I started ... after seeing the Daisy PAB ... is what gave me the idea .
On KvKs one can find various 'imperfect' shaped Daisys but only one perfect one on an arm . They vary in place depending on maker .
When some thing is unmarked how can it be associated to certain maker . Well with 70 plus makers - there are not 70 plus Daisys ... end of that attempt .
Interesting to see how Dietrich had made out with his 'dot pattern' method .

Now back to the KvK 2 I was asking about ... comparing the dot pattern ... yes we have an definite ID now . Maker : Deschler
The dot pattern matches but none of the flaws .

With some 6 million of these made one would be correct to assume that the larger companys made 2 maybe 3 hundred thousand of KvK2s
and this accounts for different masters and many production dies with numerous flaws . Using flaws of one production die - a real open guess 20 000 KvK2s ??
- a real hit or miss to find a matching one .

Just for fun I pulled out the Daisy on mine and Ronnys . He had just posted a Godet so I high lighted that Daisy also .
Some times I wonder if the dot pattern was put in after the Daisy just to hide it .

Douglas