U-boat by fo Wien sub-types

[John Henderson]

Hello to all Kriegsmarine collectors.
I have no Kriegsmarine badges as yet in my collection, so I have no real experience with these. I missed out on a U boat badge some time ago, but have always admired them from afar. That said, I have been offered this badge which is maker marked for Friedrich Orth Wien. I have searched through the archive but to be honest the only ones I saw had a circle on the lower obverse. Is this one original or a well made repro?
Your opinions are very much appreciated.

kind regards John

[mrg]

Hi John unless its the pics personally I dont like this one.

[John Henderson]

Hi and thanks mrg. Could you ellaborate as to the reasons you dont like this one. I would be grateful for the input.

regards John

[mrg]

Hi John maybe its the pictures but going off these I do not like the look of the eagle, cut offs look strange as does the colour of the metal, maybe in natural light with better pictures it may look different as the hinge and catch look ok, but the eagle looks wrong and not as crisp as it should be. The F.O are really well faked so the pictures have to be spot on. Regards mrg

[John R.]

John,

Please take the photo with the flash off, macro function on, natural light.

It will be a much better result for us to look at this badge. I personally do not have a problem with the cutouts but the flash on the badge is distorting the image.

John

[John Henderson]

Thanks for the responses. This is the only other picture I have which is not much good. I will ask the seller for some photos in natural light.
regards John

[George Stimson]

Here's mine for comparison purposes.

[Ross Lee]

As ever I could be wrong but I like this badge.

[Mike Coleman]

Question for discussion

I have not run across this question before even after doing a thread search so please forgive me if I ask something that was answered long ago. The FO on these badges is raised so that makes me think it is in the reverse side die. There seems to be two different reverse side dies-one where the FO is mid hull on the u-boat and the other where the FO is higher so that the cross on the F is pretty much even with the deck of the u-boat. I have never seen a badge with the FO at mid hull with the circle or square stamp in addition to the FO. I have only seen the extra mark on the type with the higher placed FO. Has anyone else seen it? Were the different dies used at the same time or is one of older manufacture than the other?
Mike

[Norm F]

...There seems to be two different reverse side dies-one where the FO is mid hull on the u-boat and the other where the FO is higher so that the cross on the F is pretty much even with the deck of the u-boat. I have never seen a badge with the FO at mid hull with the circle or square stamp in addition to the FO. I have only seen the extra mark on the type with the higher placed FO. Has anyone else seen it? Were the different dies used at the same time or is one of older manufacture than the other?
Mike

Hi Mike,

I think that's a really astute observation, and now that I look around indeed the "f.o." is higher when accompanied by the "o" mark. I don't know if anyone can suggest a timeline for these though...perhaps others can comment.

I do note that the "o" mark appears in various slightly different positions so that it doesn't seem to be incorporated into the reverse die along with the 'fo'. I'm also not sure if one one can say there was more than one die used. For a badge with a flat back like this, if the production method used a deep obverse die and simply a flat reverse die than the positioning of the reverse die could simply be varied to alter the postion of the "fo". If on the other hand the reverse die was an outline of the U-boat badge with some depth to it then, yes, there would be two different reverse dies.

Best regards,
---Norm

[John Henderson]

Hi to all,
the seller hasnt got back to my emails regarding better pics.
I notice on the one I posted a small lump half way along the bilge keel where it meets the hull of the boat. Perhaps from casting?

regards John

[George Stimson]

maker mark positioning

I've seen Rudolf Souval Auxiliary Cruiser badges where the "R.S." on the reverse is all over the place. Here's the reverse of mine. The "S" is barely on the badge.

[Mike Coleman]

George and Norm

I agree that with a flat reverse the maker mark can shift but to me the positioning between the two "types" seems too consistent to blame it on die shift. And I do think the circle and square are separate stamping as one sees this on other FO badges (and from what I have measured they all seem to be the same size). I only have one FO badge but it would be interesting to see if the FO is the same size on each position.
Mike

[Mike Coleman]

More

The other thing that looks different to me is on the top badge the "stop" or "period" after the "F" is a short vertical line. On George's and others like it that same "stop" or "period" is a short line angled forward.
Mike

[Norm F]

Hi Mike,

Well, you prompted me to look into this further. I went through all the past threads and put together a collage which, in the end, confirms that there are in fact 3 separate types of f.o. U-boat maker marks. This seems to confirm that there must have been 3 separate reverse dies.

Type 1: on the horizontal pin badges without the "o" stamp; wide cross-bar on the 'f'; mark is low down and slightly down-slanting

Type 2: on the horizontal pin badges with the "o" mark; narrow cross-bar on the 'f'; mark is higher up; (the "o" stamp on the lower part of the badge varies in position and is not a part of the reverse die)

Type 3: on the vertical pin badges; the stylized slanted periods after the initials are shorter and closer to the letters; mark is low down but not down-slanting like Type 1; (This type actually has the stamped "o" mark on the left edge of the reverse).

All three types seem to use the same obverse die but interestingly type 1 has consistently narrower cutouts under the sub compared with types 2 and 3.

Best regards,
---Norm