Cupal PAB in Bronze

[Philippe DB]

Hi guys,

Wood asked me to post his silver Cupal PAB in this thread. Another realy nice example and the 4th cupal PAB I have ever seen.

@Paul: unless it starts raining Cupal PAB's all of a sudden in this thread I think these are very rare.

KR
Philippe

[PaulR]

Hi guys,

Wood asked me to post his silver Cupal PAB in this thread. Another realy nice example and the 4th cupal PAB I have ever seen.

@Paul: unless it starts raining Cupal PAB's all of a sudden in this thread I think these are very rare.

KR
Philippe

I am new to the badge world(a few months), but I never heard of Aluminum badges...except for the LW.

Thank you for sharing the info with me

Paul R

[Sal Williams]

Hi Philippe,
Great thread as always! One thing that puzzled me was the comparisons of your two badges. They looked different to me though I could see the casting flaw you spoke of. Do they look different because the silver one is polished after being plated and therefore the details get a little smoother? well anyhow those are superb looking PAB's and I was waiting to see what maker had the one I would like the best. These are FFL? the silver one that you have is the type I am going to want, I agree with you, the cadillac of PAB's. If you hear of a nice one for sale and you don't have to have it for yourself please let me know by PM.
Best Wishes, Sal

[Frank Heukemes]

Dear Philippe,

Great that you found one of those!

@Sal: No, these are not FLL, they are by an unknown maker.

Cheers, Frank

[Philippe DB]

Hi Sal,

You have a good point there. The eagles heads are a little different. The cupal one has much sharper detail. I didn't figure the "why" out myself untill now.

The only thing that I can see when comparing the badges in my hand is that the eagles head on the silver one shows a litle wear. Maybe this deforms the image a little.

An other option would be die enhancement. Something I learned from Mike K in his Schwerin HSF article and that certaintly explains small difference in badges by the same maker.

I know of a couple hollow ones for sale. I'll look them up as soon as I find the time and PM you the details.

KR
Philippe

[Frank Heukemes]

Dear Philippe,

Here is my hollow badge of this kind. I also owned and sold some of these in the past and they always had that rounder beak without showing much wear overall. My guess is that the rounder beak is a production thing happening during stamping and crimping of the hollow version of this fine maker´s badge.

Cheers, Frank

[Frank Heukemes]

another one that I sold:

[Philippe DB]

Dear Frank,

Good thought. The buntmetall as a material is probably much harder to stamp in the shape of a sharp beak like you see on the cupal version. The copper layer of what, maybe 2/10 of a mm, would allow much sharper detailling when stamping such a thin layer.

KR
Philippe

[Philippe DB]

Hi Guys,

Just one more question regarding these PAB's. Did anybody ever see a bronze version of the hollow back posted by Frank and myself in this thread. As far as I recall I never encountered one.

And this made me think of a discussion I once had with Frank in this thread

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...0&page=1&pp=15.

In this thread Frank posted what we think is a Bronze hollow Wuster and at the same time mentioned that he never saw a silver version of that Wurster PAB.

Taken into account that there are similarities, as Frank already mentioned in the other thread, and some differences with the biggest being the grass area is it possible that these badges were indeed produced by the same company using a slighty different die for their Bronze and Silver version

KR
Philippe

[John T]

I have a cupal IAB somwhere...I will post pix if I can find it soon, as I recall the cupal IAB badge seems to be of a lighter weight, almost as if it were aluminum, but it is not...Philippe is your panzer cupal badge a lighter weight than say the zinc PAB's?

John

[Philippe DB]

Hi John,

Contrary to what you think John these badges are indeed made of aluminium.

In fact we should write KUPAL instead of CUPAL.

KUP standing for "Kupfer" (copper in German) and AL for aluminium. So infact combining the use of two different materials.

This also explains the weight of this badge with only 19 grams it's only one gram heavier than it's buntmetall brother with 18grams. Not bad for what seems to be a massive badge don't you think.

Zink massive badge weigh in between 26 and 34 grams for the heavy weight massive Wurster.

KR
Philippe

[John T]

Hi Philippe:

Thank you for that information, now I understand the theory behind how the badges are made...layered aluminum then copper, your badge is then considerably lighter than a zinc piece, in fact 27 to 44 percent lighter based on your figures. I have also seen political leader hat eagles and SS skulls made from this type of material...

Now for maybe a stupid question...what is buntmetal? I am confused, is it an alloy used wartime and late war such as zinc? ...or is it a quality metal such as nickel?

Thanks,

John

[Philippe DB]

Hi John,

Most certainly not a stupid question, but I lack the knowledge to answer it properly. Technicaly I think almost any alloy is somekind of buntmetall but we keep using it to distinguish between zink and non zink and that an over simplification to say it mildly.

I think Mike K, Albert and Frank have the best knowledge to answer your question. Maybe they could start a thread under the name buntmetall for all future references. This question already came up in different threads but the info is scattered arround.

KR
Philippe

[ngs3]

Bunt means non-ferrous or non-magnetic metal. It is therefore a general term that can be applied to many specific metals such as tin, brass, bronze or even zinc.

Hope that helps,

Neil

[John T]

Bunt means non-ferrous or non-magnetic metal. It is therefore a general term that can be applied to many specific metals such as tin, brass, bronze or even zinc.

Hope that helps,

Neil

HI Neil, thank you for that information, so in theory even an early nickel badge could be called bunt metal if I understand correctly.

John