MH CCC on Weitze's update

[Hans N]

Closeup to show what Tom already mentioned

[Thomas Durante]

Hi guys,

Thanks Robert.

Hans, thanks for posting the F&BL fake. You can barely see the cut marks on this example too, but the obverse is a bit different than the FLL & MH fakes, most notably the bayonet. I call this the butterknife fake because the bayone is much more blunt than the other fake CCCs. But, the cut marks and reverse all reveal that all 3 of these fakes were made by the same people.

Note on the reverse, same backplate crimping and also same disproportionate thickness at the left side of the badge under the backplate vs. the right side.

Tom

[Calvin Hall]

Tom,

Thanks for the good work in exposing these 'MH' CCCs as being fake. Good information for all.

Calvin

[deejay]

Just to add my findings: here a definate FLL copy compared to the MH, notice the characteristic leaves on the right and egles head which looks like something from jurassic park.

[deejay]

2

[deejay]

As far as the base metal goes, these are made from a high quality alloy, much like tombak. Its for this that many collectors get burned by these fakes because they are truly made with a higher quality metal than originals. Deejay, we have period documentation from 1944 that recommends the CCC in silver be made of nickel silver and that the CCC in gold be made from tombak. This is almost 2 full years after the CCC was introduced, so it can be infurred that up until that point in the war, CCCs were being made in something of lesser quality......like zinc. This is confirmed in the CCCs we collect today as they are all zinc except for the special presentation CCC in Gold. While the possibility exists that this recommendation was followed to some extent by a few manufacturers and that a truly tombak or nickel silver CCC may exist somewhere, IMO this recommendation came too late in the war and was probably not disseminated to the various manufacturers before the war ended. No tombak or nickel silver CCC has ever been found to my knowledge. Every single CCC out there is zinc, with the exception of GWL, who made a limited supply from aluminum and then ofcourse the special golden CCC. Its possible one might turn up one day, but this is certainly the exception and would have to be scrutinized heavily for authenticity.

Tom

Hi Tom thanks for your comment on the base metal. I will show you what I once bought in Germany from Wilfried Freitag (Mil. dealer from Bad Driburg) for a large amount of Deutsch Marks at that time, it is not the best of quallity picture but good enough to see that tomabk can be seen on the high- lights of grenade etc. please give your thoughts on it. (tombak coated zink as someone stated maybe?)

[deejay]

Here is another one from DN I would like you to see. Maybe FLL made an exception?

[Thomas Durante]

Hi Deejay,

Thanks for posting your FLL. I am willing to bet that it is tombak coated zinc, but it for sure is the best case I have every seen for being a tombak badge. Remember, the recommendation was for Silver clasps to be in Nickel Silver, not tombak so if you see yellow under the finish, it most likely is zinc with tombak plating.

We should be able to determine the base metal pretty quickly, tombak should be heavier than zinc. Would you happen to have recorded the weight of that badge? We can then compare it to the known zinc FLL variants to see how much they differ.

Tom

[deejay]

Hi again Tom,

I am sorry to say I did not weigh it at the time but I found the photograph and scanned it with a better scanner. Here it is. I am not going to bet with you on it but I still have to be convinced it is'nt a 'Buntmetal' clasp. (some people say I am stubborn .... I wonder why)

[Porsche]

Tom, Deejay,
I have a Silver CCC from AGMuK that I would have sworn was Tombac -until I read this thread. When I checked the weight, it's 35.2g, much the same as the Zinc badges .

Cheers,

Neil

[Thomas Durante]

Hi guys,

Neil, sorry for your revelation, but you are right, perfectly in line with a zinc AGMuK CCC. Dealers make this mistake all the time with AGMuK clasp, I have 1 that Detlev said was tombak, but when you study the badges under loupes for hours like us collectors like to do, you find out the are just heavily finished zinc pieces.

Anyone else have any "tombak" or "nickel silver" CCCs in their collection they would like us to check out

Tom

[Robert P.]

Yes,

I too have received (3) badges in the past that were thought to be tombak by the dealers because of the thin coating seen under the finish. The weight says it all.

I too would love to see a nickel-silver CCC. What a treasure!

I did some destructive testing one time months ago on a Ostfront medal. It wasn't the usual thin coat of tombak over the zinc, but solid tombak. Very heavy too.

Robert