"Bacqueville" Kriegsmarine Badges are...

[GAMS1]

5) It seemed that the dealer who "found the large quantity" (no matter the beautiful story of the poor widow or the workers) of "Bacqueville" badges was...
Pierre-Ange Caravano.
Yes, the "Johannes Floch" of France...
Something fishy to say the least... no pun intended with the KM.


Caravano was not the only one dealer to have these badges
and he never had so many ...no nice story of him producing or introducing them on the french collector's market ! Never heard this story in France ?
These badges were already on the market when i started collecting in the 70's and Caravano was not such a big dealer at that time , not even a Professional dealer .
I personnally bought some mint badges+boxes in the 80's to a guy which had been working for the renovation of the French Navy Ministry in Paris
in the 60-70's .
He has been selling-swapping them for a long time after , regarding the quantity he had got for free !
Long before Internet came on this Planet ...
Nick

[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

@ Norm : i said that the story of the "Bacqueville" is similar to the one told for the fake "Delande" CDGL.
For now there is not direct link between the two types of items.
Just an almost similar story.

@ GAMS1 : you will - usually - never have a crook saying he did something bad.
The fact is that Caravano had some, and that, if i see the testimonies, everyone on Earth got those badges, no matter the timeline, is enough to say that the volume of the "lot" is just unbelievable. Thousand of kilos of badges... And industrial production. Which stay "hidden" in the ministry of the navy for decades ?
Do you may remember the name of the guy who claimed to have "found" the badges in box in the ministry ? Was this guy a "seller" ?

Many crooks started their official business with fakes.

A few weeks ago i meet with someone who bought one of the later "high-end fake" CDGLs. He told me the "amazing story" of an old woman working in the LVF mess in Versailles and who got the CDGL. The guy probably bought in full honesty the story that the seller told him.

Like the pink smock, the "Delande" or the "Champagne SS runes", we still miss any period picture, and confirmed and legit item. Many different stories, but what is important is that an impressive amount of badges were sold after the badges, badges that came from nowhere.
The fact that some badges were "found" between 1943 and 1946 in the ministry (as one second hand story goes) doesn't imply that the badges were "Bacqueville" ones...

See You

Vince

[GAMS1]

The guy selling them was a private worker , a small collector making some profit to build up his collection of french uniforms , not a seller involved in the Militaria Market .
I don't recall the name , after 40 years ...
You speak about 1000's of kilos ? Who said there were so many ? Nobody ?
And i didn't see so many at one time ? Did you ?
i saw many times singles and when it was in lot , it was maximum 30 pieces,not 1000's of them ...
Some with boxes , some with damaged boxes , some without boxes .
Badges doesn't take so much place and could easily be forgotten in a larger storage box for many years in the cellar of an official building, where noone is allowed to go ...
Nick

[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

i will not insult you asking you if you know how to sell fakes through innocent receivers right ? "Militaria Magazine" was full of those stories in the 80's and 90's.

In the "informed circles" of Paris, the Bacqueville are just providing smiles on the faces of collectors. The problem is that many witnesses made money with those badges themselves... I will ask a few old dealers (some were also part of the crooks from the flea market of Clignancourt/St Ouen) about this subject in the next gun shows. To me it is a closed case.

About the weight... Did you just ever saw how many Bacqueville are proposed each year ? And all came originally from a "private worker" ? What a joke...
I don't have the time to keep an eye on every Bacqueville badge proposed on the net, but trust me, if i had 5 more hours per day, i will arrive to hundred sold each years. And due to the ugly quality of the whole produced lot, it is easy to keep track of each single badge.

Crooks sell everything they have, including damaged ones, even more in this subject it will help to keep the swindle alive. "Look it is damaged because some were found without boxes etc etc". Same story as for some of the "Pinkie smocks"...

The problem is that no French testified that they were fake yet...
So people are still trusting silly story, almost as best as for other fakes.

See You

Vince

[NickG]

Still around!
I was there last week (in Paris) but they were closed...on a Saturday)
French and Foreign orders the (very old) sign reads...

[John R.]

Thanks Nick. Very interesting. John

[NickG]

"Bacqueville" is (was) the distributor and "Mourgeon" the maker is the story!

[scotty1418]

Still around!
I was there last week (in Paris) but they were closed...on a Saturday)
French and Foreign orders the (very old) sign reads...

There are a couple really good restaurants right within the block!

I stopped in a couple years back and they only seem to sell current production French medals and orders for veteran needs.

I specifically tried to needle them about ANY old stock or materials, but they stressed they had none...

[jujuy]

About the french ministry story, it was not so a lie. My great uncle went back from indochina ( infnaterie de marine) in 1946 and work 10 years in the marine administration in paris and ... he brought back home in brittany entire boxes of nazi insignas that my father and my uncle ( both from 1942) burned and destroyed playing with them during the 50’ when they were more than 12 years old.

Hi,

i got a few more infos on the "Bacqueville", and i have a few comments to make.

1) the story of "a large quantity [of badge that came] from a widow of a Navy officer who was working [...] in the ministry in the 60's-70's" is common to the usual bull***t used by crooks here in France. The almost similar story was spread by René Johnson who dealed (and produced ?) the fake "Delande" Croix de Guerre Légionnaire ("widow of an LVF officer who got a CDGL lot"). The Johnson "story" was made in the late 50's, early 60's. Testimony of the father of Eric Lefèvre, the specialist of the French in the WH/SS etc available in "Militaria Magazine N°12".

2) in 1944, archives of the Etat Français (french collaboration) were mostly destroyed, not a lot was kept intact, due to a semi-official order by De Gaulle and the new government. Be sure that all official places were cleaned of "German items" days, weeks, months and maybe only a few years after the end of the war (you will always find exceptions, but a "large quantity of badges that are available everywhere no). Therefore the "lot that was found by workers during renovation of the ministry of the navy in the 70's" (another story that circulates) is very improbable if not impossible. Hundred if not thousand were sold everywhere since then... It was kilos and kilos of badges, that would have been recycled during or after the war by the maker/authorities.

3) Right after the war Mourgeon was already doing excellent quality badges, it is doubtful that they did those very average looking models.

4) if i'm right, some badges that were officially created after the regulation of manufacturers are still available on the "Bacqueville" collection ? This is non-sense to have a manufacturer making badges that could not be used, months if not years after it was forbidden to made them (no license).

5) It seemed that the dealer who "found the large quantity" (no matter the beautiful story of the poor widow or the workers) of "Bacqueville" badges was...
Pierre-Ange Caravano.
Yes, the "Johannes Floch" of France...
Something fishy to say the least... no pun intended with the KM.

Well don't be mad because thousand of collectors were tricked in the same way with the fake "Delande" CDGL for decades... Same for the pink smock, or the SS painted "champagne" runes helmet.

See You

Vince

[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

the Ministry was looted in 1944 during the Paris's Liberation...
So every single post-war story of massive lots there is a lie.
And like for the pinkie, it is not because you find Nazi badges somewhere that all the Nazi badges said to be found there are a) the same b) originals.
I really don't understand the logic of people...

Mourgeon was not the maker... this is plain ridiculous and just a myth that is told over and over by people that just don't know what they are talking about.

Did you ever saw Mourgeon produced items ?
They will never produce such crap.
Mourgeon paratrooper badges produced right after WW2 are the best looking models on the market...

So people now are saying "Bacqueville still exists... so the story is true".
Wow, Sherlock Holmes would have been so proud !
Bacqueville said they didn't make the badges during WWII, which may imply that like for the fake post-war CDGL, they maybe produced the fake Bacqueville badges... in the 70's.

See You

Vince

[jujuy]

Don t be so sure about. I ve nothing to sell and I got this information from my father and great uncle... and found with my metal detector a part of the medals they destroyed

Hi,

the Ministry was looted in 1944 during the Paris's Liberation...
So every single post-war story of massive lots there is a lie.
And like for the pinkie, it is not because you find Nazi badges somewhere that all the Nazi badges said to be found there are a) the same b) originals.
I really don't understand the logic of people...

Mourgeon was not the maker... this is plain ridiculous and just a myth that is told over and over by people that just don't know what they are talking about.

Did you ever saw Mourgeon produced items ?
They will never produce such crap.
Mourgeon paratrooper badges produced right after WW2 are the best looking models on the market...

So people now are saying "Bacqueville still exists... so the story is true".
Wow, Sherlock Holmes would have been so proud !
Bacqueville said they didn't make the badges during WWII, which may imply that like for the fake post-war CDGL, they maybe produced the fake Bacqueville badges... in the 70's.

See You

Vince

[Helmut Weitze]

Gentlemen,
I am following your discussion about the Bacqueville KM badges for a while already. Normally I don’t participate here, but I would like to let you know about my personal experience with theses badges. In the late 1970s, when I was still in high school I travelled with some friends to Paris and found the Bacqueville shop be pure coincidence. When I was looking thru the window I didn’t believe my eyes: next to french orders and regimental badges, several of the KM badges were decorated, some with and some without the cartons: submarine, e-boat, high seas, auxiliary cruisers and coastal artillery badges, mine sweeper badges I don’t remember. But the price was the same: 200 Francs each (today ca. €35,—). So i spent my entire pocket money on the e-boat and auxiliary cruiser badges (the others were still very common and not much more expensive at the time) and had to call my father to send me some more money to get home. For me it was an amazing find, because it was the first time for me to see theses french productions. Most likely I was one the first ones, who brought them to Germany The only other one known before was the one illustrated in Angolia’s reference Book “For Führer and Fatherland”. If I am not wrong , the book was printed around 1975.
I am convinced, that the badges were french war time period production, but different to the french KM breast eagles and sleeve patches, they were not accepted by the Kriegsmarine and never given out during WWII.
It is more then possible, that reproductions of them exist today, which doesn’t make it easier, but the ones from the 1970s were old.
I hope, that I could help the community a bit with my personal experience.

Best regards from Hamburg,
Helmut Weitze

[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

Thanks you Mr. Weitze for your testimony, very helpful to me.

so now the story is changing...

From the "lot found in the Navy Ministry in the 70's" the badges are now "sold in the Bacqueville store"...
I'm sure someone will say "yeah the real story is Bacqueville produced the badges during WW2, then they were stocked for 30 years in the Navy Ministry, then someone found them, and then Bacqueville bought the stock back" !
Wow, i love the critical thinking put in this theory already !

The name "Bacqueville" could be infact taken from the fact that the badges were sold by the store... Now were the badges made in 1941... or +30 years after that ? Let me guess...
And why did Bacqueville wait +30 years to sell the badges when it is confirmed that forbidden awards (Croix de Guerre Légionnaire) were for sale in the early 1960's in France ?

No matter the true in each story, how can anyone be sure that the badges were made during WW2 ??? "They look old". Yeah right...
They also look amazingly ugly.

Oh and they were proposed for 200 francs, which at the time was - like you confirm yourself - a bargain.
Oh strange, same story as the pink smock... "Totally different (ugly) type never identified before, and sold for a fraction of an original".
Always the same story used by crooks.

A last thing : it is said that copies of the Bacqueville exist, and if it is true, it will not be the first time.
The first Croix de Guerre Légionnaire family of fakes ("Delande") was copied twice, meaning that there are first and second generation fakes in the market today... You can imagine that they are very ugly, even more with the fact that the original fake "Delande" model was... damaged (i have enough to write a full chapter on the story, i even have pics of the original damaged fake, infos on the owner...).

More to come on those badges...

Oh, for the "Mourgeon theory" lovers, here is the amazing and beautiful Mourgeon paratrooper badge vs. an ugly Bacqueville... The paratrooper badge was done just after the war (before 1950).

See You

Vince

[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

and found with my metal detector a part of the medals they destroyed

Can you send the destroyed badges to Jo Rivett so he can check if those are really "Bacqueville" badges ?

Or can you post pictures of the said "Bacqueville" badges ?

See You

Vince

[Norm F]

"Bacqueville" is (was) the distributor and "Mourgeon" the maker is the story!

Although this “theory” has been often stated over the years, zero evidence has been presented to support the statement and Bacqueville has repeatedly denied any involvement. Then one quickly responds that of course Bacqueville would deny involvement in wartime activity — equally without evidence.

Around and around we go for years with no one yet presenting any evidence. So far, the Bacqueville story is just that, a “story”. Until substantive evidence is provided, the preferred terminology for these badges is “French-made”.

Best regards,
—-Norm