Help on Two Kriegsmarine Badges

[ERIC S.]

Hello Gents,
As I do not collect Kriegsmarine, I am thinking on selling these two Kriegsmarine Badges and would like to post them here first to make sure there are no problems with either of the two. I have had them for years and would like to be reassured that no recent 'issues' have arisen that I don't know about. The first is an unmarked L/21 (Foerster & Barth) Minesweeper and the second is an L/56 marked ( Funcke & Bruninghaus) Coastal Artillery Badge. Any and all input is appreciated.
ERIC

[ERIC S.]

L/56 cab

[ERIC S.]

L/56 mm

[Norm F]

Hi Eric,

The L/56 Coastal Artillery looks good.

The minesweeper, as you say, is an original unmarked F&B, but it looks to me like it's been de-Nazified, re-Nazified and refinished. See this one for comparison. And this one too.

Best regards,
---Norm

P.S. On second look, I wonder a bit about the finish on the Coastal Artillery? See what others think.

[mrg]

Both originals, finish on the L56 looks ok to me, these were quite heavy awards in weight. As for the minesweeper I agree about the finish, has even flowed into the waves, cant see any sign of denazification thou, unless its my eyes getting old now

[ERIC S.]

Thanks guys! Here is a closer shot of the upper obverse - I don't believe it has been denazified either.
ERIC

[mrg]

Looks ok to me, often found like this with wear to the legs and swaz.

[Norm F]

Hi Guys,

To try to illustrate what I mean I've attached this image of 3 F&B minesweeper eagles. On the top is a normal eagle -- note the depth of the "Hakenkreuz" and the detail in the eagle's feet. Then comes Jan Arne's partially denazified example -- you can see the distortion. At the bottom is Eric's example -- see how there's little depth to the swaz and the feet are worn off. If one were to grind down the middle version to remove the distortion it would start to look like Eric's version I believe.

On Eric's closeup you can see the difference between normal wear on the highlights of the leaves on the left and the excessive flattening on the highlights of the leaves on the right, showing that something has been done to cause this asymmetry. I'm not sure how normal excessive wear could give this kind of asymmetry. It's still a nice collectable badge though.

Best regards,
---Norm

[John R.]

Hard to argue with what Norm has illustrated. I am not sure that it was totally refinished, maybe just the area around the insignia. Both badges seem to have a very similar finish to them though.

Eric, were they bought from the same seller at the same time?

There is really no way from these photos to know if they were refinished or not I think, but they are both period badges, the FandB has been worked on as we can see.

John

[ERIC S.]

No John, they were not bought together. They were continents and years apart when acquired. Maybe the finish looks the same because I used the same 'light' settings on the scanner when I took these shots yesterday. The Coastal Artillery Badge is not even close to being refinished - just the way the pics came out I guess. Thanks to everyone for their help!
ERIC

[John R.]

Then I think neither of these were refinished. Can look like that sometimes, but in hand, it is more obvious.

John

[ERIC S.]

Thanks again John & Co. for your insight - much appreciated!
ERIC