My new Heer Flak twins

[WWIIBuff]

Hi all,

Recently got these from a friend. The silver one will go into my badge collection and the black one will go into an SS Flak kampfgruppe display I'm making.

Enjoy!

John

[WWIIBuff]

Heer Flak twins

Reverse.

[upbeek]

flak

nice badges heres mine

[upbeek]

reverse

1

[WWIIBuff]

SS Flak kampfgruppe

Here is one of the documents that will be with the black badge in the Kampfgruppe display.

John Klein

[Heer Flak]

Nice badges John! I have a black finished HA just like yours.

Eric

[Heer Flak]

reverse

[Brian Dentino]

Wow guys, I must say that these are some beauties! Love the detail in these badges.
Wish I could afford one!

Brian

[Bob Hunter*]

Most impressive! I really like the award document.

[Frank Heukemes]

Dear John,

Please do not mind my question, I am only asking because I have a similar problem at the moment:

Would you try with just a bit of finger pressure if the BRIGHT silver badge bends easily? Is it true that it has less detail than the typical dark badge? I am asking because it shows the very same unusual "die faults" like a reproduction cast Aurich Flak I am currently holding. Will post pics in this thread later today.

[I Marotto]

Frank
I think the silver Aurich's and the dark ones are made from two totally different materials in general. The silver ones seem to be a nickel/silver plating over a junk metal (combination of metals) and the dark version a zinc composite. I have an Lm that is aground recovery and the plating is quite worn that I experiment on and it reveals in certain areas the base metal underneath the plating in some spots it is quite soft and in others place very hard due to the different metal types. I used a dental tool to probe the different areas and found is some places the tool would leave marks and others it would not penetrate through to the base metal. The dark ones are very prone to getting white fuzz or zinc pest and the silver are not. I think that it could actually have something to do with when the badges were made the silver being an early version and the dark a late war so to speak. I have never seen a Silver Aurich that was a zinc piece with an applied finish or for that matter a silver Aurich that was a buntmetal / hard metal as we see in the new repros of flak badges a big chunk of metal. The dark ones always seem to be the same zinc material....Now that I think about it could it be that the early ones were the dark ones that had a hard plating applied thus the lack of detail and early war times these metals were more abundant... I also think that the silver badges fall victim to over zealous people trying to polish the badges as it is a soft plating it is prone to be rubbed to hard which I would bet is the case I have a couple of silver Aurichs that this seems to be the case.I know Mark Schroder is quite interested in this subject as well

Ian

[I Marotto]

Here is the Lm in different areas you can see the many types of metal used as the have taken on different characteristics due to the elements. In some places it has what looks to be rust other places it is white and others just hard metal these different types of materials are found in there own little pockets throughout the badge.

[I Marotto]

obverse

[Frank Heukemes]

Dear Ian,

I am looking at it this way:

1) there are perfectly ok and very nicely detailed zinc Aurich Flaks. These typically have a dark finish. These are e.g. in the collections of Tom Yanacek, Eric Sowersby and Lorenzo.

2) there are "white metal" Aurich Flaks which might be ok, but what troubles me is that they are the same in every detail as 3):

3) there is a cast copy of the Aurich Flak, done in white metal. This metal is soft and bends under a reasonable amount of finger pressure. I do not know any massive Wehrmacht award which bends under finger pressure (and can be bant back as well without breaking!). Looking at the badge you can see all signs typically for a casting: low detail, casting lines on the edges, inconsistent height of the badge in cross-section, soft metal.

Now what really troubles me and makes me wonder about all Aurich Flaks which are not of the finely detailed dark zinc type, is the fact that my casting (and believe me it is a casting, I hope you can see that on the pics) shows the very same characteristics in areas of the badge where every badge, even of teh same kind should be just a a bit different. I am specifically talking about the hinge crimping area and the catch crimping area. Looking at the bright badge that started this thread, it seems to show the very same characteristics, dents, bumps etc. in those areas as my fake badge. Also the maker mark outer ring seems to show the same characteristics on my fake and the bright badges, but it does NOT match the one of the darker zinc Flak badges from Aurich.

Measurements of my badge shown here:

H 59,8mm
W 44,9 mm
Weight 25,9 grams

[Frank Heukemes]

rev