High Seas Fleet - Foerster & Barth?

[STEVIEBOY491]

Gents,

Also picked this one up today. It has many characteristics of the Foerster & Barth. The pin and catch look original. There is a top allignment mark and the semi cut outs look ok.

Please help me and let me know what you think.

Regards

Steve

[STEVIEBOY491]

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[STEVIEBOY491]

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[STEVIEBOY491]

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[Martin W]

IMO,this is a good original zinc badge.It certainly has the characteristics of a Foerster & Barth piece.
However,it does not display the reverse hardware we usually associate with Foerster & Barth.
Still a good badge.
Here is one that i have with the "typical" F & B hardware.

Regards,Martin.

[Martin W]

Reverse,F & B.

[Infansammler]

a typically F&B HSF.........

[Norm F]

Hi Guys,

Steve suggested I update this discussion since his period HSF is listed on estand right now:

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/forums/showthread.php?t=459723


Since the time of this thread, the attribution of this HSF has changed from F&B to Steinhauer & Lück.

Just as with the S&L minesweeper and Auxiliary Cruiser badges, the inverse taper pin on these HSF badges historically caused the mis-attribution to F&B, simply because F&B used a very similar pin.

In the case of the S&L minesweeper, you can see here a few different setups on the same badge, one of which is the exact pin type used on the HSF. Notice these two S&L zinc minesweepers share the same characteristic circled flaw that carried onward into the S&L '57 version minesweeper which was based on the wartime tooling.

In the second attachment you see the S&L zinc minesweeper compared with a similar one attached to the Lüdenscheid sample board that was sold by eMedals a couple of years ago, and which contained a variety of S&L and other Lüdenscheid products.

Likewise, as Martin can tell you, the S&L Auxiliary Cruiser sometimes uses the same inverse-taper pin setup.

[Norm F]

Likewise the S&L semi-hollow zinc HSF is seen with different setups, sometimes with the inverse-taper wide pin and other times with the needle pin. The catch is sometimes the round wire "question mark" and other times the classic S&L sheet metal catch.

Below you also see the HSF from the same Lüdenscheid sample board as the minesweeper, this time with the needle-pin like Steve's.

[Norm F]

Finally, it's worth noting that although this badge was considerably modified to produce the '57 version, S&L still used the same internal trimming tool under the starboard gun as in the wartime version, creating a cutout shape which is unique to the S&L '57 and it's predecessor.

So there you have it - just like the minesweeper and Auxiliary Cruiser badges - the HSF is by S&L, not F&B.

Best regards,
---Norm

[Martin W]

IMO,this is a good original zinc badge.It certainly has the characteristics of a Foerster & Barth piece.
However,it does not display the reverse hardware we usually associate with Foerster & Barth.
Still a good badge.
Here is one that i have with the "typical" F & B hardware.

Regards,Martin.

Thanks for bringing this subject to light again Norm.

Well ,time has changed our opinion on these awards and i agree with you that they are most probably a product of St&L and not Foerster & Barth.

As mentioned, this also applies to the two piece Hilfskreuzer awards that were also once beleived to be a product of F&B,due to the inverse tapered pin.

Regards,Martin.

[STEVIEBOY491]

Thanks guys,

A really informative and detailed thread.

Regards

Steve

[BubbaZ]

Here is my zinc S&L HSF in unworn condition but faded in usual manner.
Cheers,
Hubert