MAX Finds - IABs!!!

[stewy]

Tom,i agree. They must've progressed production to suit the hardware at hand. Unless they thought that the crimped hinge was such an improvement & applied the same method to the catch. Just a thought. Stewy

[Eric N]

Tom,

Looks like you made some really good finds at the show. Congrats! We likely will never absolutely determine the FLL genesis from earlier to late war period dies and hardware setup, but it sure is fun trying to figure it out.

I was fortunate enough to purchase an example like yours back in June. Here are some photos for comparison.

Obverse:

[Eric N]

Reverse:

[Eric N]

Hinge:

[Eric N]

Another hinge shot:

[Eric N]

Oblique:

[Thomas Durante]

Very nice Eric. Yours looks to have a brass coating over the zink, to help keep the silver finish from evaporating. I don't see that on my badge, but yours I can clearly see on the rifle.

Tom

[Eric N]

Tom,

Yes, good eye. Forgot to mention the brass coating. Another variation of the FLL production process!

Though difficult to see, there are a few small areas worn through to the zink base metal.

Regards,
Eric

[Graeme]

Hi Tom

You definitely had a successful show !!...congrats. A nice selection of IABs.

Regards the Hollow FLL, I tend to think this is mid production of the hollows.
You have the cutout NS type, followed by your style with no cutout between swas and K98, then probably the hollows with many variations of hardware, and often differentiated by the flaw on the obverse where the K98 sling meets the K98.
I think most hollows do not have a cutout and were designed like that. I do not think they forgot to cut yours out.

With FLLs Hollow and Solid, I think it can safely be assumed more than one die was used and maybe reverse dies were modified along the way.

The style of your solid FLL is not unique, many examples exist with a crimped hinge and soldered catch. You might even find that your catch is crimped under the solder. FLL did have a small style crimp that I think may not have been that strong and in many cases this was also soldered. Possibly then moving onto the more successful style of crimp that they were already using on the hinge.

FLL is a good brain teaser !!

If you want me to try and dig a couple examples out, let me know.

cheers
Graeme

[George L]

Interesting FLL's. I own a solid bronze FLL that has matching hinge, and catch plates holding the hardware down, and these solid-backed pieces are the first I've seen where the catch was attached without a matching plate...could be the ran out of the plates, and used remaining stock for the hinge part? Just a guess...

[byf45]

Tom you sure know your medals keep up the good work