Weitze Mint Bacqueville Badges

[Militaria-Berlin]

Well I´m afraid I have to be a disbeliever. I never have seen such a badge coming from a grouping or family. Nor have I any reason to believe the Wehrmacht were putting out contracts into occupied territory. There were more than enough manufacturers in Germany and Austria so why use occupied countries to produce this stuff.

Possibly a French company thought they saw the chance to get in on a deal and made this stuff in anticipation only to be turned down. Possibly some of it was sold in French shops to german soldiers. I think that the LDO would have had something against that though.
I know all the story about this being found in the cellers of the French Naval Ministry but I still cannot believe its true,

Heres an article that a friend of mine, known on the Forums under the name BassD, who does a lot of research, found. The article reads:

Recently many firms from the occupied territories or friendly foreign countries have asked permission to sell German awards and have approached german companys requesting delivery of such awards, especially war badges.
It is principally not wished that foreign companys deal in German awards. There is no reason for this action, as wearers of such awards can easily get new or replacement awards from companys inside of the Reich. A delivery of such awards to foreign companys is for these reasons forbidden. In special cases a request must first be made to the Prasidial Kanzelei.

Markus

[Chris Boonzaier]

Hi Markus,

I posted that about 5-6 years ago.... a very good point indeed. Seems not to be of interest to the believers.

IMHO the French maker made and sold under the table.

IF they were really found in the late 40's then maybe a lot that were confiscated by the Germans as the french were not allowed to make them.

[WARLORD]

These points give great credance to why they were found in the French Naval office. Howere a number of these badges were found on POWs at the Ely camp. I have one direct from soarse. So Belive or not these were around at the time.

[Militaria-Berlin]

Thats interesting Chris, I only found out about this about 2 years ago but feel it confirms what most people think.

Naturally this is all a matter of believe it or not, I think everybody must make up their own minds about what they collect and think is authentic pre-45.
Unfortunatly Warlord these are all just things that people have said and like Don already pointed out, eye witness accounts are often totally wrong. How would you want to prove that such badges really were removed from POWs during the war. Surely somebody has only told you that and you didn´t see it for yourself?

Markus

[WARLORD]

The reply is very simple. The Ely camp was a soarce of material that came direct. This I was frtunate enough to be witness to. My French artiary badge came direct. Many other pieces came the same way.

[Chris Boonzaier]

The reply is very simple. The Ely camp was a soarce of material that came direct. This I was frtunate enough to be witness to. My French artiary badge came direct. Many other pieces came the same way.

If we agree that these were forbidden by the Germans.... but maybe bought in a backstreet jewellers shop in la rochelle or brest and worn by a sailor...

Then we have an unofficial wartime copy,

How much each individual collector interests himself for an unofficial period copy is up to him. A matter of personal choice.

I take "Vet pickups " with a pinch of Salt. Chris, you had the "arm stripe for shooting down an enemy aircraft" as a vet pick up if I remember correctly? It was also due to a misunderstanding?

Best
Chris

[WARLORD]

Chris your comment, "Chris, you had the "arm stripe for shooting down an enemy aircraft" as a vet pick up if I remember correctly? " You are quite right. The vet was my uncle, the badge was only the plane, this was part of the things he brought back, the reason was he thought that his little nephew would like a little plane to play with.

[Militaria-Berlin]

I can live with unofficial wartime copy although I wouldn´t want to be the French company caught by the authorities manufacturing these, they could think I was doig it for some other reason and who knows what might happen to me.

Vet picups are very hard to authenticate and as Warlord has admitted, he really can´t prove these things came from a POW camp.
So what do we have, a story about some POWs having such badges but otherwise no confirmed wartime awards to German soldiers and an official memo from the LDO forbidding th manufacture or even sale of such awards by foreign companys.
Everybody can draw their own conclusions I thnk.

Markus

[Darrell]

Wow, quite the discussion guys I never knew there was so much controvesy surrounding these.

BUT ... that was not the purpose of this thread, but I wonder if the purpose really matters now

I've seen many KM badges from this "maker" but never so many in "mint" condition. That's what rings alarm bells in my mind ....

[stdrbs14]

Are there any other types of badges made by this firm? If not why only KM? Bootleg making of badges just seems funny. I would think there would be alot of other things to make that would bring more money than these badges. To great a risk.

[BassD]

Here a statement from the member phaleristika in a german forum (Sammlergemeinschaft-deutscherauszeichnungen.org). Hope it is ok when i post his statement here. Maybe someone can translate it better, but i will it try.

"No collector has seen such Kriegsmarine badges produced in France before 1972. About this point of time these badges appeared in Paris in a antique store and at the show in Dortmund. The badges were produced by a now dead collector from the netherlands who sold these badges also. Old collectors and dealers can confirm this, but which collector likes to state "Yes, I bought a copy" and the situation with the dealers is more or less os that as soon a badge has some acceptance in the market it is difficult to give it back."

Hope the translation can be understood.


here the original statetment...

Kein Sammler hat vor 1972 je ein Marineabzeichen aus französischer Fertigung gesehen.

Erst danach tauchten diese Abzeichen in Paris, an einem Antikladen, am port de qu....( für die richtige Schreibweise müßte ich jetzt einen Reiseführer in die Hand nehmen) und auf der Börse in Dortmund auf.

Diese Abzeichen wurden von einem bereits verstorbenen niederländischen Händler Mark van .... in den Handel begracht und vorher in seinem Auftrag gefertigt.

Eine Behauptung, die von älteren Sammlern und Händlern bestätigt werden könnte. Aber welcher Sammler gibt schon zu, wenn er sich eine Gurke eingefangen hat und die Problematik bei Händlern ist sicherlich so, dass wenn Kopien Eingang in den Sammlermarkt gefunden haben eine Rücknahme sicherlich nicht so einfach ist.


So we have the statement from the Präsidialkanzlei and the statement from an old collector with some deatailled infos. The "best" what i think about these badges is that they war wartime copys. Nothing for my collection.

Gruß

BassD

[Nordmark]

Hallo BassD,


ich habe ja auch schon geschrieben, dass ich nicht an diese Abzeichen glaube. Aber mich würde nur mal interessieren, wie gesichert das mit dem hollandischen Händler ist, der diese Abzeichen hat fertigen lassen?


(I just wanted to know how sure the statement about the Dutch dealer is, any proof for this?)


Viele Grüsse,


Daniel

[BassD]

Das kann ich nicht sagen. Ich kenne diesen Händler auch nicht. Aber es macht für mich keinen Sinn so etwas zu sagen wenn es nicht stimmen würde. Umgekehrt schon eher.

I can not say. I don't know this dealer. But for me it makes no sence to say something like this. Vice versa yes.

[Richard]

These badges have always carried controversy, enough so that I would be uncomfortable in believing them genuine. The quality is shoddy when compared to even the late war German produced zinkers. I find it dubious that they would be allowed to be produced under the quality control measures in place throughout the war.

When were these supposedly produced? Early or late war? I see no reason to farm out the badge making operation early war to produce what surely enough manufacturers in Germany would be willing to produce. Even late war explanations suffer the consequence of the poor quality of these badges. Even if made under the table, how many Germans would not spend the extra Mark or so to have a quality, legally produced piece and avoid trouble from the authorities for wearing a bootleg copy?

Nothing about these badges has ever made logical sense. Why produce bootlegs? Why the inferior quaility? Why farm something out to a French company when enough German companies existed to supply the troops? Why only KM badges? The acceptance of these badges seems to be a mainly dealer driven campaign to convince the collecting community these were officially awarded. So far no period documentation or photos exist to prove these were legitimately produced prior to 1945.
Richard V

[101combatvet]

Actually, if you look at them in comparison to what the big French manufactures of insignia produced like DRAGO you will find that they do not look at all similar to anything they would have made at the time. Then the question is why.... because they were made to deceive the buyer? Perhaps.... but the question is when? If the numbers that show up on the market today were fewer I might be more incline to believe the story.... the problem is there are too many on the market and most I have seen are rather minty.... very strange. If the French were so anxious to make insignia for the occupation forces.... why didn't they do it for the Americans?

These badges have always carried controversy, enough so that I would be uncomfortable in believing them genuine. The quality is shoddy when compared to even the late war German produced zinkers. I find it dubious that they would be allowed to be produced under the quality control measures in place throughout the war.

When were these supposedly produced? Early or late war? I see no reason to farm out the badge making operation early war to produce what surely enough manufacturers in Germany would be willing to produce. Even late war explanations suffer the consequence of the poor quality of these badges. Even if made under the table, how many Germans would not spend the extra Mark or so to have a quality, legally produced piece and avoid trouble from the authorities for wearing a bootleg copy?

Nothing about these badges has ever made logical sense. Why produce bootlegs? Why the inferior quaility? Why farm something out to a French company when enough German companies existed to supply the troops? Why only KM badges? The acceptance of these badges seems to be a mainly dealer driven campaign to convince the collecting community these were officially awarded. So far no period documentation or photos exist to prove these were legitimately produced prior to 1945.
Richard V