I noticed in Detlev's guide, he frequently refers to the material "Tombak" for silver colored badges. When I looked it up, the definition is a gold colored alloy used mainly to simulate gold in costume jewelry. So is Tombak scientifically correct, or is it just a term used by badge collectors to define a metal alloy that's better quality than zinc? Thanks!
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Tomback is brass, a copper-zinc alloy with low levels of zinc. There are trace elements of either/or aluminum, lead, tin or nickel. German awards (in my experience) have a very high copper level with zinc and tin or nickel in them. The term "Buntmetal," or colorful metal, refers to the alloy's impurities sometimes giving color to the metal.
Marc -
Tombak
Also a thing to note, is that "Tombak" production has been banned in many countries because of it's chemical processing during manufacture.
..Therefore ... in theory, ... modern day forgers/fakers can't produce the same metallic properties as originals !!!!
Gary J.Comment
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Gary,
Perhaps. But when I tested a known fake PAB it did have some copper in there, though it was a zinc badge with copper and gold thrown in for color. It was certainly not Tomback, but I would not be so quick to toss away the possibility of Tomback being used today. i would not be surprised if I tested a high-quality fake out of Eastern Europe and found it was Tomback. they don't exactly have the EPA running after them in some countries...
MarcComment
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Agreed..
Marc,
I fully agree with your point !!!!!!!!
I know that in the UK it's most definitely on the banned last ... But as you point out, the scruples of some of the Eastern European fakers would almost certainly ignore the danger element in attempts at "modern production" !
GAry JComment
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