Rudolf Souval Blockade Runner Badge

[Tom Yanacek]

Hello PT,

It looks to me like an original Kriegsmarine Blockade Breaker Badge, made by Rudolf Souval in Vienna, Austria. It appears to have the proper attachment hardware to be classified as a "wartime compatible" badge. Souvals can be tricky as this company continued to produce badges, using the original dies, long after the war ended.

But from the overall look, as well as the attachment hardware, I would say that this one is a wartime original. And, actually, a Souval Blockade Breaker Badge is not often encountered. It would seem that they didn't make too many of these during wartime nor too many re-strikes in the postwar years.

Best regards,
Tom

[Norm F]

Wow, ten year old thread dragged up here.

I agree with Tom, the badge posted by P.T. is a "good" Souval.

Looking back in the thread, the badge posted by Darrell in post #11 and #12 is an S&L and the badge posted by JayP in post #7 and #8 is the post-war Souval (stamped L/58) which is based upon S&L's design and not Souval's own wartime design. The fact that Souval used tooling or planchets from S&L for their post-war production (ca 1960's?) provides a good argument to suggest that Souval no longer had their wartime tooling and therefore the "R.S" marked version is wartime (or at least earlier) production.

Best regards,
---Norm

[John T]

rs

Here are two from the woodwork, vet estate finds

[John T]

the second

[Norm F]

Interesting, the Souval badges I like best for likely being wartime production are the ones with the "question mark-shaped" catch. I'm not saying only this type is wartime, just that I'm a little more comfortable with these.

[BubbaZ]

Interesting, the Souval badges I like best for likely being wartime production are the ones with the "question mark-shaped" catch. I'm not saying only this type is wartime, just that I'm a little more comfortable with these.

That's exactly what I think as well.
Here is my RS AC, wartime badge IMO, and it also features the "question mark-shaped" catch.
Cheers,
Hubert

[BubbaZ]

And my Minesweeper with this type of '?' catch.