Two Coastal Artillery badges

[Bobki52]

I bought these badges here so I believe that they are good, particularly the Juncker. It seems to sync up with the reference badge(s) on the Baldes website. But I'm curious about the L/56. It looks like the back of the badge was sprayed with something when the pin was in the down position. Baldes has no information on an L/56 so I don't have a good reference.

The L/56 weighs 27.0 grams, is ~54.8 mm high and ~40.8 mm wide. The Juncker weighs 30.1 grams, is ~53.3 mm high and ~41.1 mm wide. What do you guys think about these two pieces?

[Bobki52]

A few more pics

A few more pics

[Hans Kondor]

I like both, tombak Juncker with flat wire catch and a zinc Funcke & Brüninghaus.

[BubbaZ]

I agree with Hans, both nice originals
I enclose my flat wire catch tombak Juncker CAB for comparison.
Cheers,
Hubert

[Norm F]

Hi Bobki52,

Could you please show a direct view of the reverse of the L/56 with the pin down?

The badges look good but the weights seem off. Are you sure about your scale?

Perhaps Hubert could provide the weight of his Juncker for comparison.

Best regards,
---Norm

[Bobki52]

Weights and new pics

OK. I weighed the badges again and, without looking at what I posted earlier, the L/56 is 26.9 grams and the Juncker is 29.9 grams. I also weighed another Juncker of mine, and it is 31.2 grams. ???

Norm, if you need better pics please let me know.

[Martin W]

Both are good original badges,IMO.

The weight on the Juncker seems to be in the "ballpark".

My tombak Juncker with a "C" wire catch weighs in at 29.6 gms.

Regards,Martin.

[Norm F]

Both are good original badges,IMO.

The weight on the Juncker seems to be in the "ballpark".

My tombak Juncker with a "C" wire catch weighs in at 29.6 gms.

Regards,Martin.

Excellent Martin, glad to hear it.

Does anyone have a weight on an L/56 Coastal Artillery to post?

Best regards,
---Norm

[BubbaZ]

Here are dimensions of my tombak Juncker with flat wire catch:
- weight: 28.4 gr
- 52.92 mm x 41.43 mm.
Cheers,
Hubert

[Martin W]

[QUOTE

Does anyone have a weight on an L/56 Coastal Artillery to post?

Best regards,
---Norm[/QUOTE]

Hi Norm,

the L/56 example illustrated in Sascha Weber's book weighs in at 24.0 gms.

Height 54.85 mm.
Width 41.45 mm.

A slight difference in the weight,which is to be expected but the dimensions are very close indeed.

Regards,Martin.

[Norm F]

Does anyone have a weight on an L/56 Coastal Artillery to post?

Best regards,
---Norm

Hi Norm,

the example illustrated in Sascha Weber's book weighs in at 24.0 gms.

Height 54.85 mm.
Width 41.45 mm.

A slight difference in the weight,which is to be expected but the dimensions are very close indeed.

Regards,Martin.

Thanks Martin. Still, 3 grams difference within zinc production seems like quite a bit. I wonder if the one in Sascha's book could be a bit off or if this is a true variability. It would be nice to have a few more L/56 CA badge weights to get a sense of the scatter.

Best regards,
---Norm

[Martin W]

Hi Norm,

i think that a three gram difference in weight on a certain badge by one maker is quite acceptable.

Take my four S&L zinc HK's for instance.These all feature the early type globe with the narrow lines of longitude and latitude.
The variations in weight on these badges ranges from 29.2 to 36.7 gms.
Now i realise that the variations in reverse hardware may be a factor here,from needle pin to wide pin types.

As another example,i have four tombak Juncker HK's.
These badges are all 100% original and unmessed with.They all feature the same reverse hardware,block hinge and C-wire catch.

The weight varies from 34.7 to 38.8 on these four awards.

I think that the dimensions on an award is a more important factor than the weight.
This diversity in weight on a single type of award by one maker,tombak or zinc is one of the reasons why Gordon omitted the weight of the awards in his last book,i think?

Regards,Martin.

[Norm F]

Hi Martin,

Thanks very much for that excellent insight. From your data it is indeed clear that a 3 gram difference in a zinc badge from Lüdenscheid may indeed be perfectly acceptable.

And the range in your Juncker HK badges is also interesting. Certainly we know there is a huge difference between the thick so-called "1st pattern" tombak Juncker U-boats and thin "2nd pattern" Juncker U-boats.

While I can understand the approach of avoiding the weight discussion, I still feel it's important to include this parameter as well in the study of war badges. It's important to define the range for each maker's badge as this gives insight into a maker's style and consistency while also allowing the identification of obvious outliers. My impression is that the range will still be very narrow for certain badges and certain makers, for example the tombak Schwerin badges.

So rather than having no weight data, it's best to have the data for several badges of each type by each maker to enhance our understanding as collectors. And indeed that's exactly what you've done with your S&L and Juncker HK badges.

I too like the look of Bobki52's L/56 badge but it behooves us to collect as many weights as possible to see the pattern of distribution.

Best regards,
---Norm

[BubbaZ]

Hi Martin and Norm,
Interesting discussion about weight allowances
but can such huge differences in weight between S&L zinc HKs be explained by different reverse hardware only? Maybe it is also different base material(feinzink vs kriegsmetall)? Is it possible that these S&L and Juncker HKs come in each case from different dies, I mean different sets of tooling with same design?
Cheers,
Hubert

[Norm F]

Hi Martin and Norm,
Interesting discussion about weight allowances
but can such huge differences in weight between S&L zinc HKs be explained by different reverse hardware only? Maybe it is also different base material(feinzink vs kriegsmetall)? Is it possible that these S&L and Juncker HKs come in each case from different dies, I mean different sets of tooling with same design?
Cheers,
Hubert

Hi Hubert,

For sure, these weight differences are not just from reverse hardware differences. For legitimate wartime badges such large differences must mainly be from differences in thickness of the metal stock.

I think in order of magnitude of effect, you would see:

Tombak
1) thickness of metal (major component)
2) hardware differences (minor)

zinc
1) thickness of metal (major component)
2) hardware differences
3) impurities in the zinc

So you don't have to have separate dies to produce different weight badges, just different materials.

Speculatively, one would suspect that the stock would get thinner as the war progressed such that lighter badges would be later produced. Probably not a consistent rule but it makes sense and would explain the differences in thickness in the two styles of Juncker Tombak U-Boat.

Martin, do you see any obvious difference in thickness between your heaviest HK and your lightest?

Best regards,
---Norm