U-BOAT Badge with Diamonds

[MI6258]

I recently obtained this uboat badge with diamonds marked 800 silver. I believe it is possibly a Bacqueville production, or it could be a private purchase from a jeweler. It is heavy, and constructed very well as you can see from the pictures.

I recently read an article on the Internet whereby an individual named Bill Stump interviewed Admiral Doenitz and the Admiral stated in the interview that he order about 100 copies made ...this leads me to believe that this is possibly one of those copies that were ordered.

Would appreciate opinions.

Joe

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[Jeff V]

Hi Joe, welcome to the forum! Your badge is not one of the awarded types. The "jeweler made" story has been used forever to peddle copies. I can't say for sure if your badge was made during the third reich or not, but I sincerely doubt it. As far as Bill Stump goes, he also had a jeweler make some diamonds awards for himself long after the war ended.
best wishes,
jeff

[magnusmilitaria]

anyway , looks nice!
Mark

[John R.]

Does not match awarded badges of this type. Post war creation but interesting to have as a curiosity piece perhaps.

John

[mrg]

Hi joe and welcome, can only agree with the above comments, sometimes when you get the diamonds checked out they can be just sparkly glass. Regards

[5ribbonbar]

I really hope you did not pay too much for it...I now little about originals of this form but judging from the comments of others it does not look good.

Cheers,

Glen

[Lubo]

As the others have mentioned, not the accepted type!
Not many people would be willing to jump in the "dark hole" like you did!

[Ludwig]

I hope you didn´t pay A LOT of money...

[Ludwig]

The real diamond badges were standard buntmetall badges with a diamond swastika added. as far as I know.

[Darrell]

Well ... you could take it to a Jeweler to see if the diamonds are real.
Somehow I don't think anyone will use real diamonds to spruce up a fake badge ...

[Stan]

U-Boat Badge with Diamonds

Hi Ludwig,

Early badges are said to be made of tombac and later one's silver which are not hallmarked.

This is an example shown in DN's book and Torpedos Los and as you will see, the recipient has helpfully (for our purposes) scratched the back to see if it was made of gold! The diamonds are rose-cut.

The E-Boat badge with diamonds was made in tombac as far as I can remember.

Stan

[John R.]

I have to say that I am confused a bit by Gordon's description at the top of that page. He states that there were two versions. The first was a standard tombak U-boat badge with a the diamonds swastika over the original swastika, but I do not see such a badge in his book. Then he says there was a second version, in silver. It looks to my eye as all 4 examples on pages 200-202 are silver, none are tombak.

In all cases, Gordon is saying that there is a separately affixed swastika attached to the original swastika, both the tombak and silver versions.

John

[John R.]

The E-Boat badge with diamonds was made in tombac as far as I can remember.

Stan

Stan,

My understanding is that the S-boat badge was awarded once, maybe more though of course as indicated by Gordon Williamson in his latest book. The badge was in solid silver, never tombak, as evidenced by this one badge, according to Gordon.

So if somebody has an S-boat with Diamonds, it should be the one awarded to Toniges, which is highly doubtful, or to another recipient with good provenance unless I am missing something here.

As a collector, one should be very wary of an S-boat with Diamonds. I guess it is possible that period examples are out there, but besides the Toniges badge, I am not aware of one.

If somebody else has information on the S-boat with Diamonds, please post it here. Be interesting.

John

[Stan]

U-Boat Badge with Diamonds

Hi John,

I do not have a copy of "Torpedos Los" but I do have a photocopy of the page showing the obverse and reverse of the badge I have posted (where you will also see the pin down position). It is at the bottom of the first page (201?) under the heading "U-Boat Badge with Diamonds" and is the example below the example with the larger diamond- you can recognise it by the scratches on the reverse as you can in DN's book.

Stan

[Jon. H]

Ok, i'll get emedals on my neck for posting this. But here is one from the Niemann book.

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