St&L - SS Long Service Medals

[Alex W.]

Hey guys,

what exactly is known about St&L's production of the SS long service awards ?
I know there is not much info but please let me know.
Would it be possible that the wreath of the 12 & 25 year variant was a separate attached part ?

Thanks,
Alex

[J C Gray]

We know very little, apart from the fact that all four grades appeared in the 1940 St&L catalogue. As for the attached wreath on the 1. and 2. grades; this is a feature of the postwar 'Souval' pieces and there is no evidence to support this method of manufacture during the TR period.
The confusion (or blame) can be traced back to the inclusion of one of the aforementioned two-piece awards in Jack Pia's 'SS Regalia' alongside an original 12 year example.
I personally cannot think of any logical reson why such an award would be constructed in this fashion and why Souval did so in post war years is also a mystery to me, considering that they probably had the appropriate technology to manufacture a one piece, die-struck version. The only possible explanation that I can think of is that these reproductions can, for some unknown reason, sometimes be found in the form of a silvered swastika with an attached gilt wreath...leading me to assume that they had originally intended for the different wreaths to be interchangeable...possibly to add to the ever growing range of Third Reich fantasy items or just through plain ignorance.

[Alex W.]

Thanks very much for the info. I'm aware of the Souval post war variant and know the details of these pieces as I collect those. I believe if Souval wanted to do a "cheaper" post war copy - they would have done so by doing a one-piece design. I believe the reason they do have a two-piece design on the 12 and 25 year variant is a different one...

I have received a set of SS Long Service awards which were bought in 1964 according to the date of the invoice along with other St&L post war awards.
All four long service medals look very similar to the known post war Souval medals but upon closer inspection they have some entire different details.

Like I said, the other items that were part of the same grouping with those long service awards are St&L products, so those service medals might in fact be St&L's long service medals.

The fact that Souvals pieces are so close in design is no surprise to me. As I collect post war medals I'm aware that St&L and Souval had very close relations in the post war years and often shared almost the design (spanish crosses, KVK RK... etc)
So my theory is that those post war SS Long Service medals sold in 1963 are actually from St&L instead of Souval.
Souval simply used St&L's design for their SS Long Service awards - like in many other cases before.
I've compared many known and also partly L/58 marked medals; the Souvals are always a match to each other. Only this one set has different details, so I'm leaning towards the St&L theroy. It's no doubt they are still post war produced medals but if indeed this is the St&L's medals design it would very fascinating.