Army Para Badge

[Tony Farrell]

There's one up for grabs in my 'local shop' and the alarm bells immediately started ringing. It looks like a 2nd type in all respects apart from the fact that the tail feathers are not touching the wreath - a distinct 3mm gap. I junked it, told the vendor what I thought of it (and the price tag) and left him to ponder a questionable Eagle Order breast star (2nd Klasse w/o swords) that he also had. Now, was I 'using the force' or am I a muppet. I suspect the former. Opinions welcome.

[Prosper Keating]

Sounds like you're using the force! Seriously, though, by the sounds of it, you did the right thing. If there was such a gap between the end of the tail feathers and the wreath, that would certainly be enough in itself to ring the alarm bells.

Did it look like this one?

[Prosper Keating]

Reverse view:

Note the distinctive gap between the tail feathers and the wreath. This is supposed to be a 2nd pattern APB in silver and it is made of silver but I have seen one made in some kind of brittle base metal using the same moulds. What was the one you saw made of?

[Prosper Keating]

Here's another fake offered for sale a while ago by a German dealer - I can't recall who - with some postwar documents relating to a Fallschirm-Infanterie veteran's wartime awards and military service. The diving eagle on this type of fake is usually horizontal but someone has gone to a lot of trouble to reposition it at a steeper angle so as to more closely resemble the real thing. Note how the two plates on the back serve to obscure the original, incorrectly positioned holes in the wreath. Perhaps the veteran did this. Perhaps he acquired a fake and carried out a bit of DIY. Who knows? Truth can be stranger than fiction. But it was offered for about half the going rate at the time. Did one of you lucky chaps tuning into this forum buy this lovely ensemble?



PK

[Tony Farrell]

eg.#1

Yes, it did look very much like the first example, but with a smaller barrell hinge and a different catch - the usual C type. It also had no maker's stamp and appeared to be either zinc or aluminium.

[stogieman]

Hey Prosper

Is that a DIY safety catch on the back of your badge?? necessity being the mother of all, heck ya'll know what I mean.

[Prosper Keating]

Hi Rick!

I'm very happy to say that it's not my badge! Regarding DIY, I'd say that the whole badge is DIY. Not a bad effort, all the same, for a bunch of gougers working in a backstreet workshop. But hardly up to C E Juncker's standards.



A genuine 2nd pattern silver APB by C E Juncker:

[stogieman]

Well,......

Another area frought with danger! It seems there are no shortage of bogus Para badges. Hope I find a real one cased someday. Just one, that would be enough!

[Bill W.]

At my age I could be wrong but this set as I remember was sold bt Detleve Niemann. It was strange even then but I didnt give it a third thought because of who was selling it. Someone else remember this?

[Prosper Keating]

I remember now. Yes, you're right, it was offered by Detlev Niemann. Presumably he believed it to be original, especially as it came with these documents. That said, though, if memory serves me correctly, it was priced lower than one would have expected. Even repaired APBs command the same prices as intact examples, such is the rarity of these badges. I think it was around the equivalent of £600 GB. Or maybe $600 US.

PK

[Chris Boonzaier]

Far be it for me to get involved in a discussion about a badge I know nothing about, but just 2 observations.

1) It would have suprised me very much if the pictured badge was sold anywhere near market price...it is heavily repaired, no matter what Badge we are talking about, condition ALWAYS reflects in the price. (I have seen folks turn down super rare badges that were repaired, with the reason "if I am going to Buy a XXXXX then rather $5000 for a super one than $3500 for a bad conditioned one")
2) If the holes were moved around and hidden on the back with these plates.... you would still see them on the front, the eagle would not be wide enough to cover them 100%.

Anyway, I dont know these badges and do not venture to give an opinion, I do however think Prospers arguments are not watertight this time.

[Prosper Keating]

But you just have given an opinion! So now I suppose I have to reply in defence of my arguments...although I would prefer to call them 'observations'. You should know me well enough by now to know that I don't tend to make statements that cannot be substantiated or supported by hard evidence or reasoned and logical argument.

I take your point about repaired badges. But I can tell you personal experience that I have seen 'heavily repaired' but original Army Para Badges sold to people who know what they buying for rather more than the prices demanded by most dealers, prices that cannot be used as a realistic guide because in most cases, the APBs offered by dealers are fakes. But I really don't want to get involved in a brawl about bent dealers or, at best, dealers who cannot be trusted to know what they are selling to their customers.

Of course a mint or near-mint, intact Army Para Badge will command a premium but not much more than an example with one or more period repairs. For reasons that have been exhaustively discussed here, many original aluminium APBs are broken or repaired or both. If the badge in the picture with the documents were genuine, then I can assure you that a serious collector would not expect to pay a vastly reduced price for it. On the contrary, the issue would probably not even be discussed. But hey...don't take my word for it. Ask some of the people here who own and are very happy to own heavily repaired APBs! And then offer them two-thirds of the market value - the real market value - for their badges and see what they say.

As far as the badge in the picture goes, I understand your point about the holes in the wreath but here is an unaltered version of the same type of fake, with the diving eagle at the overly shallow angle. I think if you look at it, you will see that it would be possible to alter the angle of the diving eagle without exposing the existing holes in the wreath. You would have to reposition the rivets or, to be more accurate here, remove all traces of the rivets from the reverse of the diving eagle and fit two pins as close to the edges of the wings as possible. These pins would then pass through new holes in the wreath. And then, you would cover up the evidence on the reverse with two plates, as in the case of the badge pictured. That is what those two plates are for. They certainly serve no structural or aesthetic purpose. They are to conceal the fact that the eagle has been repositioned. That is all.

Lest anyone jumps to the conclusion that I am sniping at Detlev Niemann, let me hasten to assure everyone that this is not about the dealer but simply about the badge. As I said before, the veteran who certainly earned the Fallschirmschützenabzichen (Heer) with the Fallschirm-Infanterie and whose postwar papers appear in the photograph may well have acquired this copy or fake himself and altered it to make it look more like a real one. There is no suggestion that Herr Niemann was acting other than in good faith when he offered this badge for sale, at a price that reflects its heavily-repaired nature. After all, as is often said here, Detlev Niemann is a helluva nice guy and can't be expected to know everything about everything he's selling. Bad ones can and do slip through. Happens to everyone. Especially when one is dealing with a throughflow of large numbers of medals and badges.

As is also often said here, it's up to the buyer to know what he's buying. I happen to know my stuff when it comes to the Army Para Badge and para badges in general. But show me a convincing-looking Close Combat Clasp and I really wouldn't know what to say to any of you because it's not something I have studied in any great detail. Which just goes to show that one can't be expected to know everything about everything. But if I were selling a CCC, then I would make every effort to research and verify it beforehand in order to avoid any embarrassment arising from the badge being returned as a fake.

But then, many dealers aren't embarrassed at all. Why should they be, when they can just smile, murmur some platitude about how they can't be expected to know everything about everything that passes through their hands, give you a refund (in most cases), take the badge back and then get rid of it through a dealer's runner, one of those characters who circulates like a blackmarketeer with a coatful of wristwatches and nylon stockings, offering you deals on nice pieces "from private collections", whose owners always want to remain anonymous.

Well...what did you all think that dealers do with contaminated stock? How do I know? I was a dealers' runner in London in the 1970s. It sure beat delivering newspapers to earn pocket money! And as I have said, thehonesty of 99% of dealers is index-linked to their need to pay the bills each week.

But we're straying away from the subject here. Or are we? Tony did kick off his thread with a comment about some criminal offering a fake APB for sale.



PK

[Prosper Keating]

Here's a reverse view of yet another example of the type of fake in question. The other one on the left is also a fake.

Of course, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the fake pictured with the documents was assembled with the diving eagle at a more accurate angle. It is impossible to tell from such a low resolution image. If it were the case that the eagle had been repositioned, then depending upon the metal or alloy used in the badge's construction, any holes could even have been filled and the wreath refinished. The main thing is, the badge is a fake and a fake that has been tampered with to make it more attractive, either by a veteran who had the right to wear it or by someone else for other less honest reasons. If it had been altered by an FIK/FIB veteran, then I would certainly include it in a Fallschirm-Infanterie-related collection as a curio but certainly not for many hundreds of dollars.

PK

[Frank Heukemes]

Dear Prosper,

The badge shown on Detlev´s pictures has a totally different hinge though than the fake on the right, which you show us in this last picture...

Cheers, Frank H.

[Prosper Keating]

The hinge is only a detail. The fake in the last picture is the same type of fake made from the same pattern as the others I have shown. The fact that it has a different hinge suggests that one was made at a different time to the other and that the fakers used whatever hinges they could get hold of.

Look at the other thread on the 1943 APB which Akira has just bought. The hinge and pin assembly is different to other known original 1943 APBs although it is a known variation. Most of the 1943 APBs have the more familiar mid-war barrel hinge with the oblong base, as seen on the examples in the APB article and also on the collections page of the http://www.majorplm.com website. Some 1943 APBs also had different hooks, some being made of round wire, others of flat wire. But these are details. The main thing is that the badge was struck on the same dies as other 1943 APBs and the 1937/38 2nd pattern aluminium and 800 silver APBs.

The same applies to the fakes discussed in this thread. The eagles and the wreaths are the same. But the badges were probably made at different times so details such as hinges, pins and hooks can differ. The thing is, gentlemen, the badges are fakes and that is all there is to it. My only interest in the badge offered by Niemann is a desire to know if he got it directly from the man named in the accompanying papers. As I said, if it is a fake badge acquired, altered and perhaps worn at reunions by someone who earned an original before WW2, then it is interesting in the same way that Ernst Jünger's 1960s Pour Le Mérite reproduction for wearing purposes is interesting. But if not, then it is just a fake.

PK