High Seas Fleet Badge - Vet Pickup - Help Identifying Maker

[Adrian]

Here you go Jeff, a link to my marked '16' and several others posted in the same thread: http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/FORU...3&highlight=16 .
As a point of interest, both Muller and Rettenmaler used the 'standard' type Steinhauer & Luck frames, they didn't have their 'own' design frames. Whether or not they bought the completed frames in from S&L or purchased the dies I don't know.

[Colorado]

Thanks Adrian - Isn't trying to solve a mystery fun?

By the way, the Gmund case maker is A Rettenmaier.

As Norm mentioned in the other thread, the Wound Badge resembles Pforzheim style. I have had zero luck identifying the Narvik (posted on the Shields forum). The Gold Driver's Badge I assume came from same area as it's unissued condition.


If you look, the 100th got close to Schwaebisch Gmund, but no record I found of occupying. I guess it depends on exactly where the maker's distributors were located.

[Andreas Klein]

2) A pre-existing maker of a wide line of war badges war forced to change their production values significantly in late war, resulting in the flatbacks.

By Occam's razor, theory number 2 is a more likely scenario than the first. Is it just a coincidence that these crude badges appear to come from Pforzheim, and Pforzheim was the only city of KM badge production city so thoroughly bombed?

---Norm

I think "bombed" out means more than some destroyed dies which could be rebuilted from the master in a few weeks. Pforzheim was destroyed for more than 80% so we speak of death workers, destroyed machines, destroyed buildings and a destroyed infrastructure. These are things which were irreplaceable.

[Andreas Klein]

As Norm mentioned in the other thread, the Wound Badge resembles Pforzheim style.

The wound badge features pure standard style as it was used by several different makers and it can't be linked to a maker or area.

[Colorado]

Just thinking out loud.

Could there be any connection to flat back badges, the destruction of Pforzheim and Schwaebisch Gmund?

If the Veteran obtained them in the vicinity of Pforzheim, is it possible that after destruction of buildings in that area, a maker or maker's in Schwaebisch Gmund began manufacture afterward?

The badge distributors would still be in the Pforzheim area and the geographically, one is on the west side of Stuttgart and the other is on the east. They are two relatively close cities and both known for making medals and badges.

We do know the Vet got the badges and his unit was in Pforzheim, so how would Gmund medals get into his hands?

[Norm F]

The wound badge features pure standard style as it was used by several different makers and it can't be linked to a maker or area.

Hi Andreas,

Yes, I had said the setup was non-specific but "Pforzheim compatible".

Cheers.
---Norm

[Thomas Durante]

We do know the Vet got the badges and his unit was in Pforzheim, so how would Gmund medals get into his hands?

Any number of ways Jeff. He could have traded it from a soldier that served in Gmund, or it could have been in a retail shop that had purchased badges from a maker in Gmund. Also could have gotten it from a German POW who could have been awarded it, etc.

Another example of this is the JFS CCC. Obviously a Gablonz-made badge, so where did your soldier pick up that one? Any number of ways we can imagine, and probably even more ways we can't imagine 65 years after the fact!

Tom

[Norm F]

Just thinking out loud.

Could there be any connection to flat back badges, the destruction of Pforzheim and Schwaebisch Gmund?

If the Veteran obtained them in the vicinity of Pforzheim, is it possible that after destruction of buildings in that area, a maker or maker's in Schwaebisch Gmund began manufacture afterward?

The badge distributors would still be in the Pforzheim area and the geographically, one is on the west side of Stuttgart and the other is on the east. They are two relatively close cities and both known for making medals and badges.

We do know the Vet got the badges and his unit was in Pforzheim, so how would Gmund medals get into his hands?

Hi Jeff,

Reasonable musings. As you say, Pforzheim, Stuttgart and Schwäbisch Gmünd are all within a 100 km stretch.

Tom recalled another potential Schwäbisch Gmünd connection to flatbacks was in a comment by Frank Heukemes back in 2006 in this thread:

"Earlier this year, the company of Alois Rettenmaier went bankrupt. A few guys in Germany bought what was left of their WWII stocks. I was in contact with one of these guys. Among some marked Rettenmaier items, such as EKs, there were a few examples of the unknown #11 GAB.
Not the final word on it, but a good hint I guess. Through the similarities of reverse finishing in the #11 GABs and the (or better some) Flatback PAbs one can assume these were made by Rettenmaier too. But again, no proof. There were no PABs among the Rettenmaier remains. Which does not mean he never made them. Just no leftovers."

Odd though, Rettenmaier isn't bankrupt and has a healthy business (and website) today.

All this is very tantalizing, but unfortunately nothing definitive (yet).

Best regards,
---Norm

[Norm F]

...Also could have gotten it from a German POW who could have been awarded it, etc.

Hi Tom,

That's a rather an important question, IMO. You've more experience than I have, but I've never seen a German vet grouping with provenance that included a KM flatback. In minesweepers badges, I've seen apparent German vet owned Schwerins, Mayers, Junckers, RK and "unmarked AS" badges but never a flatback (or a Bacqueville!). That's another reason I think these were very late war or even sometimes post-war products -- there's no evidence yet that they were actually ever awarded. And I must say if I was a demoralized soldier in late war, a shoddy zinc flatback wouldn't go far in cheering me up!

Best regards,
---Norm

[Thomas Durante]

Hi Norm,

Like you, I don't know of any flatback badges gotten directly from vets either. However, I personally never discounted the flatback badges as postwar products. Now that you mention the shoddy cutouts and finishes, I think you could have a good point that these could be postwar products, but I never really considered them anything other than just later-war, mass produced badges. Like many of the "Vienna Design" PABs, the design and quality is lacking, but we have seen plenty of these in vet groupings and ground dug to know they are just later-war, mass produced badges.

Tom

[Norm F]

Hi Norm,
...
Like many of the "Vienna Design" PABs, the design and quality is lacking, but we have seen plenty of these in vet groupings and ground dug to know they are just later-war, mass produced badges.

Tom

Hi Tom,

Perhaps there are several low-quality Heer makers (I don't have the experience), but amongst Kriegsmarine badges, the flatbacks stand out for their lack of quality -- aside from the Bacqueville badges, they are the ugliest KM badges to appear. It's hard to imagine the OKM accepting these things alongside an "AS in triangle" zincer or a nice zinc Deumer, or the zinc Schwerin, Mayer and F&B badges, but maybe once Berlin and Pforzheim were bombed they couldn't be so choosy...

Cheers.
---Norm

[Colorado]

Gentlemen -

Based on the unissued condition pieces and another find of Narvik shields verified by Pascal, there is strong evidence that the maker of the Narvik Shield is by Alois Rettenmaier.

See Narvik thread. It would be a logical assumption, that the other mint piece (the Gold Wound Badge) might be from the same maker.

Here is the thread in the Shields Forum.

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4743931&posted=1#post4743931

[Colorado]

Hi Tom - I missed your post - so replying a second time.

The JFS CCC although in great condition is missing the catch. Badges with missing catches, I assume (maybe wrongly) were torn off the uniform of a Soldier.

He has ribbon bars and WWI Vet medal in there too. They were the odds and ends I dismissed.

[Graeme]

Hi Graeme,

As you know, this is a thread of speculation based on circumstantial evidence -- this is all we can do in the absence of documented history of the firms involved, but it is a very interesting exercise.


Best regards,
---Norm

Hi Norm

Many thanks for a very informative reply, an interesting read on the makers and cities and the theories you raised. A lot of good points. Also lots of info to keep in mind going forward with regard to the flatbacks. And the possible connection to Pforzheim. Thanks

I think at this point the quote above is accurate, and imo it would be impossible to be sure of a maker, and possibly a region. Somewhere in this thread it was mentioned that those badges could have come from many sources, and we need to keep this in mind. I know Jeff has the history of the vet, and believes this area is where he picked them up from, because he was at those locations, but there is no way to know for sure. They could have come into his possession at any time, all at once, or at different times.

regards
Graeme

[Norm F]

more connections of Alois Rettenmaier, Schwäbisch-Gmünd to the flatbacks:
http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=704005

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=638833

Best regards,
---Norm