Schwerin HSF - Nice?

[Wilson Khoo]

Got this a few years back.... took a break from collecting and thought i will share my HSF. What do you guys think of this specimen?

[Philippe DB]

Textbook Wilson, very nice.

The finish doesn't look like fireguilding though, a bit to coarse, but that's always difficult to judge from pics.

KR
Philippe

[johan]

Nice one

[Al P]

I agree with Philippe that the finish might have been re touched, but the badge itself is a good one.

Al

[Tim B.]

Wilson,

Looks good to me; thought I would play with your PIC a bit, hope you don't mind?
Tim

[Mike Kenny]

Hi,

Imo the badge is a very nice and quite early example - these ones tended to come with a heavy and coarse/grainy fire-gilt finish. Honest light wear to the obverse of the ship. Great example.

Regards
Mike

[Tim B.]

More thoughts.

I didn't look at the reverse too close originally and didn't realize that the badge was a first pattern tombak. I thought all so-called 4-window versions had the smoother reverse and not the deep strike like the first pattern badges?

Anyway, I am enclosing another PIC of the badge with some pointers and you can see some laquer in the recessed areas to the right and what may be wear to the bottom of the wreath and tie (X). The colorization of the gold is correct for Schwerin IMO, but it's odd that the center is worn considerably more than the wreath in this example.

I agree with Mike that these earlier tombak badges did have a deeper, heavier fire gilding to the wreath and perhaps the wear lasted longer, and I also noticed that the blueing or dark finish applied to the center of the badge seemed to wear faster on the 4-window badges than the rest. I find it harder to find these HSF's with the ship more silver in color unless the badge is of the 4-window lot.

Tim

[rhudspith]

Interesting to see the weak window on an early example

[Mike Kenny]

Hi,

I'm not sure a weak window on an early badge (ie those with a sharp reverse deck impression; Type-1 in the article) should be news. The weak window is found on later early types and the earliest of the "smooth" reverse tombak badges. This was actually shown in my article (Image#18). Perhaps in Post#6 I should have written "relatively early" rather than "quite early".

Regards
Mike