Couple of new additions - GABs

[Job Lunter]

The dotted Hobacher with dotted acorn pattern, hollow Hobacher and some eye candy.

The hollow Hobacher is one of my favorite pieces. It shows how advanced the production was near the end of the war. Keeping the positive sides of having a solid badge but saving material at the same time.

[Thomas Durante]

Hi Job,

Very nice GAB collection my friend, thanks for showing. Indeed some rare beauties in there, including that semi-hollow Hobacher, very rare to find, I only know of a handful.

The solid backed one you show is a new one for me, exceptionally detailed acorns. I have never seen another one like it. Reverse looks a little suspect to me, the reverse surface in particular. But the hinge, pin, catch and catchplate all look perfectly wartime as well as the finish on the obverse, the zink base metal and the wear to the obverse. So many positives that outweight the single negative and I like it alot. A very interesting find, and can only wonder if we will see another.

Tom

p.s., I can understand your trepedation with WAF's problems over the last few years, I also had my concerns. However, you may know that Dietrich and I have agreed to come aboard as WAF Administrators in September and I hope you will see that we are making some progress in improving WAF. Just this week we have completed our test of the new WAF server (which will elimiate the white screen 500 errors we all get from time to time). We are fixing a few bugs and then hope to migrate to the new server as soon as this week if all goes well. Once that is complete, we have big plans for the future, so we hope you stick with us for the great things to come.

Tom

[Job Lunter]

Hi Tom,

I think we briefly discussed this one before on Facebook. But it was shortly after it arrived and I did some more comparing afterwards. The finish is similar to other known Hobacher variants, as well as the setup which is found as a short setup on another Hobacher variant. What I forgot to mention is that next to the acorns a unique feature is the slightly curved appearance, which appears to be factory applied.
When comparing them in hand the detail of the Dotted variant stands out.

It might be a little early to state this is 100% Hobacher, but the common feature are surely present.
I personally think someone might have cleaned the back in the past. The staining and fading pattern does look awkward.

Regards, Job

[ENGLISH BOB]

My other pick up was this nicely preserved unmarked GAB by Funcke & Bruninghaus. Also another one that has happened to have eluded me all these years, despite being lucky enough to pick up his rarer Cupal brother last year at the SOS. I really like the obverse design of these F&BLs, especially the stippling to the oakleaves, really nicely done and gives these unique GABs a great look IMO.

Hope you like this one as much as I do.

Thanks

Tom

That's a pretty Badge Tom,many thanks,i thought i'd nailed it

Cheers
Bob

[sniper11]

Very nice GAB's presented along with very useful info.Thanks for sharing.

Troy

[tenten]

..., despite being lucky enough to pick up his rarer Cupal brother last year at the SOS.

Great additions, Tom! I did not know a Cupal variant of this GAB exists... could you please post some pictures of it?
This is variant 1.25.1 by unknown maker #8 in the book, isn't it? Is there a tangible connection to F&BL by now? If I remember correctly these have been found with L12 and L56 stampings, but both might have been added later.