Hollow 5 feather u-boat

[Thomas Durante]

Hi guys,

There is a zinc-based 5-feather in the new Kriegsmarine badge book. I like that one alot, looks very believable with wartime hardware, correct-looking zinc base metal and believable finish. I would have no problem accepting that one as an original, but the one here I don't like based on the reverse hardware and the fake fire gilding IMO. Notice how thick the gilding is, looks like it was painted on rather than fired gilded like originals. Has anyone ever seen real gilding this thick?

Tom

[Norm F]

Here's a link to another thread with an almost identical hollow badge with clearly a post-war main pin setup and the mysterious "T over W" trademark:
http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...=1#post5044196

Best regards,
---Norm

[BubbaZ]

The same reverse setup as on Patrick's hollow U-boat can be found on '57 KM wound badges - few examples from GMIC thread enclosed.
Cheers,
Hubert

[BubbaZ]

one more postwar KM wound badge.
H.

[JAndrew]

Just a technical point about "polished highlights". When someting is made with polished highlights and is also to be plated then the areas of the highlights are polished before the plating process. Why? Because if you do not start with a polished surface then you will never have a nice shiny highlight post plating until you have smoothed out the underlying surface. In other words, it won't have a shine until you have polished the plating off and down to the base metal to smooth it out. If the hightlight is polished first then after plating a light buffing or, if the plating is thick, chasing it, will make the highlight stand out. These principals were known to badge manufacturers.

This piece looks like it was polished down to base metal in order for the highlights to stand out so it makes me sceptical that a reputable manufacturer would have produced this and had this type of technique be acceptable to the powers that were.

JAndrew

[Norm F]

Hi Hubert,

Thanks for posting those. Yes, I'd say the burden of evidence to date suggests the hollow version of the 5-feather U-boat was a late 50's or early 60's product.

The question remains whether the solid zinc version (with different hardware) pictured in Klietmann's 1957 publication could have been wartime or not. It's "wartime compatible" hardware and finish don't prove wartime manufacture, so we're still in the dark about those.

Best regards,
---Norm

[Norm F]

This piece looks like it was polished down to base metal in order for the highlights to stand out so it makes me sceptical that a reputable manufacturer would have produced this and had this type of technique be acceptable to the powers that were.

JAndrew

Hi JAndrew,

I think I'm missing something here because I don't understand. Polishing highlights is a final step after the finish is applied and there would never be any plating process after that step:
1) Planchet is struck
2) Any plating process is performed
3) Finish is applied
4) Highlights of the finish are polished to produce a glossy shine in those areas. Sometimes this is a smoothing and polishing imparted to what was a somewhat granular finish to begin with, but other times like on some Tombak badges it would expose and polish the Tombak base metal -- depends on how zealously it's polished.

So the polished highlights on the post-war hollow badge is not a departure from tradition, but as Tom pointed out the thickness of the finish and perhaps the crudeness of the polishing process leaving a line on the sub's conning tower is atypical compared with wartime.

Best regards,
---Norm

[JAndrew]

Norm,
I am sorry, I did not explain myself very well. Let me give an analogy. Let's say you are going to have two people paint two sets of wooden shelves that you just put together. You want a nice, smooth finish on the shelves when they are done.
Person A takes the shelves and sands them nice and smooth and even and then paints them and when the paint is dry, buffs with a little wax and there you are: nice smooth finished shelves.
Person B takes the just finished shelves and paints them without sanding them smooth first. The surface is rough so he sands it down smooth. In the process he takes away a lot of the paint. He buffs with a little wax and is done. Also a nice smooth finish but the paint is gone in the areas of heaviest sanding.

I think of scenario B when I lok at this badge.

So, one stamps out a badge and the rough stamping (planchette) is taken and trimmed and finished on the edges and then, if this is to be a "polished" badge, the highlights are buffed to give a nice smooth shiny surface to plate over. For something like a u-boat badge that would take about 30 seconds. After plating, these same areas are lightly polished or buffed or what have you to get that mirror bright finish. Between the nonpolished areas of the original strike and the "roughness" of the plating, the other areas have the "frosted" appearance.

So a little bit of extra work is done for a polished piece but if you look at the price lists for badges from that time you often see that the polished badges were a bit more expensive than the same badge not polished. If you talk to people that do a lot of plating for the jewelry or antique trades they will tell you that the quality of specular reflection of the finish does not depend on what you are plating with but the preparation of the surface you are plating on to. Trying to fix flaws by over polishing the plating only removes the plating. It is a layering process and not a filling process.

I hope that was a better explanation than my first, rather clumsy one.
JAndrew

[Norm F]

Hi JAndrew,

Ah, I see what you're saying but I don't think that quite fits with our current understanding of the steps of wartime production and finish (which admittedly could have varied from place to place and time to time).

Firstly, lets agree that the term "polished highlights" refers to a different (and later) step than the polishing of the surface of a stamped planchet before finishing.

Secondly, I agree that a stamped planchet would be de-burred, buffed or otherwise surface prepared before the optional plating step or final finish is applied.

But I don't think the two price categories in the late war LDO price list for "handpoliert" and "nicht poliert" actually had anything to do with a hand polishing step in surface preparation nor just polished highlights in the final product. "Handpoliert" conferred a considerable 30% price increase over the "nicht poliert" and most likely referred to the application of a different premium finish. This is borne out by the observation of two different finishes seen on otherwise identical production late war KM zinc badges as seen in the badges discussed in this thread and the one it links to:
http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...=nicht+poliert

So I don't think significantly different principles of production and finishing processes were used in the 50's or 60's production of the hollow 5-feather U-Boat. They just look different because of the actual finish that was used, the clumsiness of execution of the highlight polishing and the hardware, in my opinion.

Best regards,
---Norm