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**Norm F** · 01-15-2012, 11:53 AM

Originally posted by Bobki52 View Post

This is an unmarked Minesweeper Badge. Who the maker? It's definitely not a Schwerin or an R.K. It looks like #01944, #08755, or #10016
on the Carsten Baldes database, but there is no maker attributed to those samples.

Hi Bobki52,

This the Tombak Schickle/Mayer-type Minesweeper variation 2.5.2 in the Classification Table (although there might be some revisions soon). The maker is either Otto Schickle or B.H. Mayer in Pforzheim.

Schickle went out of business in 1941 and his stock was sold off and dispersed. The Minesweeper is an exact match to the Shickle wartime catalog image so we know Schickle made these, but the ambiguity arises from the few Tombak examples that are stamped L/18 for Mayer. It's not known whether B.H. Mayer acquired Schickle's tooling and continued production or whether he just acquired remaining completed stock from Schickle.

One line of thinking is that Mayer probably continued production because this badge type is very common and Schickle had less than a year to produce them all before going out of business. But on the other hand, is doesn't take very long to fill an order for thousands of badges when up and running so who knows.

The fact is, Mayer's own later zinc Minesweeper design which is fairly consistently marked L/18 is different from these Schickle/Mayer badges, and he never used this exact setup on his own zinc badges.

So for now we just call this the Schickle/Mayer design, and the same applies to the U-Boat and Destroyer counterparts.

Best regards,
---Norm

**Norm F** · 01-15-2012, 12:00 PM

For what it's worth, here's the Otto Schickle L/15 marked EK1 with the same complete setup as the Minesweeper.

This is the most common setup on these Minesweepers, but you can see another variation shown in this thread.

Attached Files

OttoEK14WAFr.jpg (176.9 KB, 312 views)

**BubbaZ** · 01-15-2012, 12:12 PM

Originally posted by Norm F View Post

The fact is, Mayer's own later zinc Minesweeper design which is fairly consistently marked L/18 is different from these Schickle/Mayer badges, and he never used this exact setup on his own zinc badges.

Hi Norm, - but he did on transitional zincers of Schickle/Mayer design which are also fairly popular. I think that Schickle had a little chance to produce so many zinc Minesweepers.
I enclose my zincer of Schickle/Mayer design.
Cheers,
Hubert

Attached Files

**Bobki52** · 01-15-2012, 12:16 PM

Wow!!!

Wow!!! Now THAT'S an answer, Norm. Thanks.

And Hubert, thanks for your input too.
.

**BubbaZ** · 01-15-2012, 12:23 PM

Norm, what I wanted to say is that if mayer could make zincers of this design (which is very likely IMO) then he could also make tombak variants.

Bobki, this is very nice Minesweeper, not easiest to find in this condition

I enclose my tombak of this type.

Cheers,
Hubert

Attached Files

**Norm F** · 01-15-2012, 12:44 PM

Originally posted by BubbaZ View Post

Hi Norm, - but he did on transitional zincers of Schickle/Mayer design which are also fairly popular. I think that Schickle had a little chance to produce so many zinc Minesweepers.
I enclose my zincer of Schickle/Mayer design.
Cheers,
Hubert

Hi Hubert,

Yes, that's one reasonable theory, but I'm not sure it stands up to closer scrutiny. Although we've been posting several examples of the zinc version in the other thread over on GCA, in fact the zinc "transitional" version is quite rare compared with the plentiful Tombak versions.

And again, not once do we see a "transitional" zinc Schickle/Mayer badge with the identical setup to Mayer's own later zinc design badges. If Mayer was stamping out new badges with the Schickle design on Schickle tooling why would he never use the same setup he used on his own design badges?

The big question is when was zinc introduced in badge production relative to when Schickle went out of the Wehrmacht awards business. We've already seen in other discussions that zinc production appeared in 1941 so it's still possible Schickle was an early adopter. Supporting this is the fact that, in hand, these zinc transitional pieces seem to be a different composition from later zinc badges so I think they were trying different alloys at the time.

Finally, we have seen posted on GCA and WAF, three mysterious L/56 stamped Pforzheim products - a Schickle/Mayer Destroyer, a Schickle/Mayer zinc Minesweeper and a Schickle EK1. The EK1 at least bore a correct wartime F&BL stamp in the pin while the two KM badge stamps matched each other. If these Pforzheim products were truly marked by F&BL in Lüdenscheid it makes more sense for them to have originated from leftover sold-off Schickle stock than from B.H. Mayer, (especially the Schickle EK1 which is different from Mayer's).

The bottom line is we can no longer refer to any badge of this design simply as a "B.H. Mayer" since there remains a high probability that they all originated with Otto Schickle. The term "Schickle/Mayer-type" avoids the potential for error, and you could well argue it's reasonable to call them all "Schickle design", since no matter who made them, this type started with Schickle.

Best regards,
---Norm

**Norm F** · 01-15-2012, 01:11 PM

Another interesting thought comes from considering the timeline of the introduction of KM badges:

1) The Minesweeper Badge was was introduced in August, 1940 so Schickle had almost a year to produce his stock.

2) The Blockade Runner Badge was introduced in April, 1941. Mayer produced this badge only in zinc.

3) The Auxiliary Cruiser badge was introduced Apr, 1941. Marked Mayer versions of this badge are only in zinc. The extraordinarily rare Tombak version that has appeared so far could well have been by Schickle since it also has the same setup as Schickle's EK1.

4) The Fleet War badge was introduced Apr, 1941 and was produced by Mayer only in zinc.

5) The S-Boat badge was introduced May, 1941 and was produced by Mayer only in zinc.

6) The Coastal Artillery badge was introduced June, 1941 and was produced by Mayer only in zinc.

So you see, there's no real evidence that Mayer made any Tombak war badges after April, 1941. It seems Pforzheim was an early adopter of zinc whereas in Berlin they continued a little longer with Tombak, as evidenced by Schwerin and Juncker's Tombak Coastal Artillery badges.

We've been blinded to all this evidence by the few Tombak Schickle design badges that were stamped L/18.

And yet we've seen other Schickle design tombak products stamped by other makers L/21, L/52 and L/56, all of which are compatible with the notion of dispersal of Schickle's stock which was then stamped for the retail market by a variety of others. We've even seen correctly L/15 marked Schickle tombak silver wound badges which were then also marked L/52 by Zimmerman, and correctly marked L/15 Spanish crosses re-marked L/21 by F&B. These examples proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Schickle's products were acquired by other members of the Liefergemeinschaft Pforzheim and re-marked for retail market. Schickle wasn't in the habit of marking his KM badges with his LDO number, probably because they were produced in large numbers for the Kriegsmarine as award pieces rather than for the private retail market and so required no LDO stamp. But it stands to reason if Mayer wanted to retail some Schickle Tombak Minesweepers he would stamp them L/18 as per regulations.

Best regards,
---Norm

**Bruce Simcox** · 01-15-2012, 03:16 PM

Hi Norm......

......Very well said!

**BubbaZ** · 01-15-2012, 05:39 PM

Hi Norm,
Thank you very much for this broad justification of your thesis

It sounds very reasonable. There is only one element that puzzles me - U-boats, which you omited in your posts above. We know that Mayer made tombak U-boats and that he also made zinc U-boats of completely different design... If he did such shift of designs in U-boats then why he could not do it for other types of KM awards for some reason? What is more, tombak Mayer U-boats feature reverse hardware same as on tombak Schickle/Mayer design Minesweepers (the one with block hinge), and zinc Mayer U-boats feature reverse setup typical for later Mayer zinc KM products.
If you find an answer to this then I will rename my 3 Schickle/Mayer Minesweepers into Schickle-type badges

Cheers,
Hubert

**Norm F** · 01-15-2012, 06:22 PM

Originally posted by BubbaZ View Post

Hi Norm,
Thank you very much for this broad justification of your thesis

It sounds very reasonable. There is only one element that puzzles me - U-boats, which you omited in your posts above. We know that Mayer made tombak U-boats and that he also made zinc U-boats of completely different design... If he did such shift of designs in U-boats then why he could not do it for other types of KM awards for some reason? What is more, tombak Mayer U-boats feature reverse hardware same as on tombak Schickle/Mayer design Minesweepers (the one with block hinge), and zinc Mayer U-boats feature reverse setup typical for later Mayer zinc KM products.
If you find an answer to this then I will rename my 3 Schickle/Mayer Minesweepers into Schickle-type badges

Cheers,
Hubert

Hi Hubert,

But the U-Boat badge situation directly parallels the Minesweeper and Destroyer situations. Once again the Schickle/Mayer-type badge is shown in the Schickle catalogue. The Schickle/Mayer U-boat design badges both in Tombak (common) and zinc (uncommon) bear the same hardware variations as the Schickle/Mayer-type Minesweeper badges, and once again these hardware combinations never occur on the B.H. Mayer later zinc U-boat design. Once again Mayer (and Zimmermann) applied the LDO numbers to a few of the Tombak Schickle/Mayer badges.

When you think about it, if we didn't have a handful of L/18 stamped Tombak badges of the Schickle design, we would always have assumed they were all Schickle on the basis of the Schickle catalog images and hardware matching Schickle's marked crosses and wound badges. It's only the few L/18 stamps that cause us to append Mayer to the name, and yet for some reason we never likewise appended the names of Zimmermann and F&B who also applied their stamps to Schickle products.

So the thesis for the U-Boat badges (and Destroyer badges) is the same as for the Minesweepers. The thesis states that Otto Schickle was the major Pforzheim producer and supplier of Wehrmacht awards until mid-1941, after which others took over his stock and then used their own tooling for their own smaller zinc badge lines. I'm suggesting that no individual member of the Pforzheim Liefergemeinschaft could compare to Schickle in output, as suggested by the fact that despite three and half more years of zinc badge production until the end of the war, B.H. Mayer and F&B zinc combat badges are still quite rare. I think Berlin, Gablonz and Lüdenscheid were much more important suppliers to the Kriegsmarine for award pieces in the post-Schickle era.

Best regards,
---Norm

Attached Files

schicklecompare.jpg (173.9 KB, 282 views)

**Norm F** · 01-15-2012, 07:07 PM

For reference, here's Gary's L/18 Mayer-marked Schickle-design U-Boat badge compared with Schickle's wartime catalog. (Catalog image borrowed with respect from GCA for educational purposes). There's a similar comparison on page 85 of "The Kriegsmarine Awards".

Best regards,
---Norm

Attached Files

U-Boat-Schinkle-style-Frt.jpg (236.0 KB, 279 views)

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