Mineweeper Opinions Please

[greg1878]

Hi, myself and 13 year old son are novice collectors new to the forum. We have a small number of the more common badges but have recently found that we have a fake PAB
Please have a look at our Minesweeper, we have read Norms articles but are still unsure wether ours is ok.
Comments are appreciated and will be taken as part of our education!!
Thanks - Greg and Thomas

[Martin W]

Welcome to the forum Greg.

I will let our Minesweeper experts chime in on this one but to me it appears to be a postwar piece by Steninhauer & Luck?

I would at least say postwar assembled as the catch assembly does not look period to me.



Regards,Martin.

[Norm F]

Hi Greg and Thomas,

As Martin says, welcome to the Kriegsmarine forum.

The pin is indeed similar to the Steinhauer & Lück pin, but this particular Minesweeper badge is actually an early zinc Foerster & Barth from Pforzheim. It's not easily recognizable at first glance because the characteristic F&B catch has been replaced and then likely the whole wreath and reverse has been re-gilded. I believe I can also see some streaks on the silver water column suggesting it has been repainted as well? So it appears to be a wartime badge with post-war restoration.

The length of the pin shows this to be the earlier F&B rather than the later one which shorter. I believe you will find that the pin is non-ferrous - i.e. doesn't attract to a magnet.

Best regards,
---Norm

[Marcel Banziger]

This is why I like to read for hours in a row on the WAF....because of all the expertise here

[Martin W]

Hi Greg and Thomas,

The pin is indeed similar to the Steinhauer & Lück pin, but this particular Minesweeper badge is actually an early zinc Foerster & Barth from Pforzheim. It's not easily recognizable at first glance because the characteristic F&B catch has been replaced and then likely the whole wreath and reverse has been re-gilded. I believe I can also see some streaks on the silver water column suggesting it has been repainted as well? So it appears to be a wartime badge with post-war restoration.

The length of the pin shows this to be the earlier F&B rather than the later one which shorter. I believe you will find that the pin is non-ferrous - i.e. doesn't attract to a magnet.

Best regards,
---Norm

Excellent Norm.

I guess the catch and the mainpin threw me off on this one.The pin is somewhat similar to that seen on my postwar S&L HK's.

Thanks,Martin.

[greg1878]

Norm, that's great news, I think my lad would have lost all faith in my judgement if I had got this totally wrong again!
The moral of the story for us novices is 'post before you buy'.
Thanks for your help
Greg and Tom

[Pepe77]

I´m still surprised how much of you guys are able say about items from a few pictures, it´s great to be here Greg and Tom please remeber that this badge is an restored one and I can see a crack to the wreath (badge looks vaulted from pics) so it should be priced accordingly.

[Norm F]

The pin is somewhat similar to that seen on my postwar S&L HK's.

Thanks,Martin.

Hi Martin,

Is there any consistent difference between the S&L wartime inverse taper pin and the post-war S&L inverse taper pin? My impression is it was all the same wartime stock that they just used up post-war?

I've noticed two different patterns of tooling at the top of S&L's inverse taper pin but I can't link either one specifically to post-war use and so currently just accept them both as wartime stock. The first is trapezoidal with distinct horizontal margins on the top and bottom while the second is more shallow and has a groove across the middle. But both of them are different from the tooling mark on the F&B pins. F&B's tooling mark is very shallow and smooth with clean margins and sits higher up on the pin.

Best regards,
---Norm

[Martin W]

Hi Martin,

Is there any consistent difference between the S&L wartime inverse taper pin and the post-war S&L inverse taper pin? My impression is it was all the same wartime stock that they just used up post-war?

Best regards,
---Norm

No Norm,there is no differenece between between the tooling on the wartime pins and the postwar pins.
Indeed,as you say they are are from the same period stock and as we know were used in postwar assembly.

In the image below i have scanned three S&L HK's.The badge on the left is a period piece and the middle and right badge are of the type we beleive to be
postwar assembled and have discussed before.The toolmarks are almost identical on all three pins.

Also as you mentioned the tooling on the F&B pins is quite different and now that i take a closer look at Greg's badge and my own F&B i can see the similarity.

I should have had my coffee before i responded to Greg's thread
early this morning at about 5:00 am Pacific Time.

Oh well.

Cheers,Martin.

[Norm F]

I should have had my coffee before i responded to Greg's thread
early this morning at about 5:00 am Pacific Time.

Hi Martin,

I don't know about that. It wasn't that easy a call, especially since S&L and F&B used the same obverse design for their Minesweepers, and then it led to a really interesting discussion!
Besides, I'd be a lot worse than you at 5:00 AM...

Best regards,
---Norm

[Martin W]

You are too kind Norm.

What is interesting about this thread is that it has you have helped us,in future to really take a close look at the toolmarks on the pins of these inverse tapered pin KM awards.
For years this inverse tapered pin was "always" associated with Foerster & Barth.

We have,through identifiying the hardware on some of these inverse tapered pin badges,determined that the maker was S&L and not F&B.

Good stuff.

Regards,Martin.

[BubbaZ]

I agree, F&B Minesweeper with replaced catch.
Here is mine F&B zincer, toolmark on the pin is the same as on greg1878 badge.
Cheers,
Hubert