Auxillary Cruiser for review

[Al P]

Posting these pics for Bob I

[Al P]

Reverse.

[Tom Yanacek]

Original, zinc Schwerin Auxiliary Cruiser, but in my opinion, the gilt finish on the obverse is not original. Looks refinished.
Best regards! Tom

[Al P]

An original later type zinc AC badge.


Al

[Jeff V]

Agree w/ Tom on this one. Original zinc Schwerin but with refinished obverse.
jeff

[jwburchell]

Interesting. First time I have ever seen an AC badge without the gilt finish on the Viking ship. If the obverse was refinished, why would the ship not have been refinished as well? Can anyone offer an explanation? I would like to know for future reference.
Regards,
John

[BobI]

Hi!
These badges came out of a very old collection. He bought them out of a garage sale eons ago. I had a little question to a couple of them and wanted to run them by you guys. The AC was one that troubled me although it definitely had some great characteristics. The badges were/are in a case with all badges named and have been framed for years. Since they came this way out of the garage sale I wonder why all of the badges are not refinished? I almost suspect these were stored in the optimal environment and have retained wonderful finishes. It is rare but not impossible that this is the case. The reverse sides are as “minty” as the obverse sides. Secondly, when I have seen refinished badges “there is a dealer out here who does this”, there are normally telltale signs. Zinc badges besides fading almost always have corrosion, which these do not. I really wonder if they are just wonderfully preserved examples?
Thanks!
Bob

[BobI]

HeHeHe!
I just tested the U-boat badge with a solvent and guess what, no bleeding of the finish
I had the fear of God in me thinking that as we would have expected, the finish would run off. As soon as I get the courage to test the other badges I will. I don't know how well my nerves will stand up as I keep bringing the Q-tip to the badge.
Thanks again!
Bob

[John R.]

Aux Cruiser

This does not surprise me very much Bob and Al.

Applying a little common sense to this badge, there is a reason why most are in pretty good condition I think.

The badge was instituted 24 April 1941. Only Thor arrived back in Germany the end of April 1941, all the other aux. cruisers were at sea. Hard to award this badge to the crews when they were gone.

Only the crews of Thor, Orion, Komet and survivors of Atlantis got back to Germany for the most part by the end of 1941, so logically they would have got their badge. No aux. cruisers deployed in 1941.

In 1942 only Thor and Michel left on cruises. Presumably, the crews had the badge by then or were awarded the badge when they qualifed for it during that cruise. In 1942, Thor was sunk, Komet sunk, Stier sunk.

In 1943, only Coronel got underway and returned a month later. Michel was sunk.

My point, not a lot of these awards were awarded in the first place, and it was all over by 1943 in any case for this type of ship. Crews were small in relation to the large numbers of sailors that went thru the cruisers and battleships form Sep 1939 on that were awarded the HSF and therefore banged that award up if issued. In other words, not only do you have to calculate award universes by crew size but also cycle periods for replacement crews and multiply those two numbers together. This was not applicable to the aux. cruiser crews. They were not replaced.

Therefore, "late war issue" aux. cruiser badges is almost saying "mint" since how/why would it have been awarded and to whom? Even early war tombak production badges (post April 1941) were for the most part unissued I would think. The crew size varied greatly depending on the raider. If we accept that zinc badges came about in 1942, there was not a big window for the issue of even the tombak badges, but probably most of the crewmen of aux. cruisers got tombak since by the time the zinc version came around, there were no more aux. cruisers and their crews being created, in other words, the crews had their awards by then and virtually no new crews were later created.

Perhaps the craftsmen making this badge knew it was not going to be issued anyway so that explains why the badge in this post was not finished and is in good/interesting condition?

The aux. cruisers carried plenty of Iron Crosses which were hand finished aboard, but I think the uniform stores ashore had plenty of aux. cruiser badges on hand by the time the war ended.

John

[rhudspith]

JohnWB,

In my opinion I also think the badge has been refinished by someone, perhaps they did not know that the boat was supposed to be gold as well.

On an original I would also anticipate the reverse to have a gold finish suggesting that the whole badge with pin set up was finished prior to the attachment of the globe. Perhaps the only remains of the original finish is shown on the pin, hinge and hook, being of better quality metal, this has been retained.

[skip]

I agree with Rob. Ones of these I have seen in decent condition always have the reverse and pin/hinge finished in an identical gold tone to the obverse. I think this has been painted at some point, the gold tone is much to "yellow" for an original Schwerin anyhow.


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