Naval Minesweepers Badge

[Ralph Arndt]

Emebroidered and Zink Badge. What do you think, real or fake. Thanks

[Ralph Arndt]

Naval minesweepers Badge

Two more.

[BubbaZ]

Hi Ralph,
Both zincers are nice original Schwerin Minesweepers, variation 1.1.7 in The Classification Table (no hinge pin head/cutouts around eagles head)
Here is my 1.1.7.
Cheers,
Hubert

[Norm F]

Hi Ralph,

I agree with Hubert about the good zinc Schwerin badges.

The embroidered badges are interesting. To date, I've never seen a period photo of a hand embroidered badge in wear although there are most definitely photos of the machine embroidered badges in wear. This doesn't mean the hand embroidered versions didn't exist, they almost certainly did. These would have been private purchase and possibly even individually ordered items from a "Stickerei". They were not official awards and their use was forbidden by regulation after mid-1942.

Because of all this, we're dependent upon plausible construction and stories of provenance to try to guide us as to the probability of wartime production of any example that shows up. The problem of course is that non-standardized hand embroidered items are easily created at any time over the last 60 years without a lot of technological resources.

I like the look of the bullion example you posted. It at least seems to have some age to it. The cotton one is a complete first for me and hard to judge since I can't find any comparators of closely similar construction. We'll have to wait and see if anyone can find something similar.

Best regards,
---Norm

[John R.]

I like all four, with the big caveat that Norm mentoned about the cloth examples. The embroidered example is especially interesting and if I owned them I would not be quick to dismiss their possible wartime provenance.

John