A Hard To Find Panzer Badge

[Tom Yanacek]

Hello to all,

Here is a Panzer Badge that is really hard to find. It is a rare version of the A.S. Panzer Badge, being die-stamped instead of the common die-forged version. I know that Philippe has a few of these, but I have never seen one of these first-hand until today. Unfortunately, this one is not mine. It belongs to a friend of mine who bought a large collection recently. What a great badge!
Best regards! Tom

From the front,it looks like the typical A.S. or A.S. in a triangle badge...

[Tom Yanacek]

... but it sure looks different on the reverse.

[Philippe DB]

Hi Tom,


Your friend is a very lucky guy and I can only hope that he's fully aware of that. Indeed one of the rarerest and most beautifull PAB's ever made. Only trouble is that they are oh so fragile and, certainly the silver ones, received a terrible low quality finish. Anyway the set-up on this example looks unrepaired and thats already special.

I'm fully aware, every morning when I wake up, how fortunate I am having this little hollow AS family in my collection

[Tom Yanacek]

Hello Philippe,

Those are great badges! I knew that you had a few of them. Are all four of those die-stamped, hollow backs? I did tell the owner that it was indeed a very rare Panzer Badge.
Best regards! Tom

[Don D.]

Great badge Tom. If your friend ever wants to be slightly richer let me know.
Don

[Philippe DB]

Yep Tom they are. For some strange reason even this rare PAB was produced on two different dies.

The most "common" (not sure if I should use this word in relation to these PAB's)

Is the "dot A dot S" marked example. That's the example you posted and my two cutout grass and bronze example.

My Standard Silver one is the "A dot S dot ". variant with a slightly different grass area.

KR
Philippe

.A.S o

[Philippe DB]

.A.S r

[Philippe DB]

A.S. o

[Philippe DB]

A.S. r

[Tom Yanacek]

Thanks for all that information, Philippe!

Best regards! Tom

[Tom Yanacek]

Yep Tom they are. For some strange reason even this rare PAB was produced on two different dies.

The most "common" (not sure if I should use this word in relation to these PAB's)

Is the "dot A dot S" marked example. That's the example you posted and my two cutout grass and bronze example.

My Standard Silver one is the "A dot S dot ". variant with a slightly different grass area.

KR
Philippe

.A.S o

Hey Philippe,
Do you really think that there were two different dies for this badge? I'm thinking that the first badges struck were the .A.S type which was the result of a mistake by the toolmaker cutting the reverse die. (Easy to get confused doing this because you work backwards.) Later, they decided to correct the mistake and just repaired the same tooling, making the proper A.S.
Best regards! Tom