Uboat Schickle

[paul w]

Hello Norm, some interesting points you raise there, I'd like to find out the weight of Johns badge as the 3.6 gram discrepancy in weight between Pers badge and the weights given in Torpedo Los still seems a lot, all the best,

Paul

[Norm F]

Differences in weight of badges are commonly observed simply from having used planchets of different thicknesses for each production run.

Here's an example of the early hollow version with the same setup.

I was just wondering (speculation) if perhaps they first tried just using the same obverse die with thin planchets but with a flat reverse die and then later went to a deeper die and thicker planchets for the later version?

Best regards,
---Norm

[Norm F]

Here are two Schickle Minesweeper badges that differ in weight by 4.5 grams.

[paul w]

I'm not sure I buy the theory about the dies Norm, These badges were produced 1939/40? Quite a short period of time for such changes, regards,

Paul

[Norm F]

Differences in weight of badges are commonly observed simply from having used planchets of different thicknesses for each production run.

Two more. These differ by 8 grams!

[Norm F]

I'm not sure I buy the theory about the dies Norm, These badges were produced 1939/40? Quite a short period of time for such changes

But they made the mistake of starting with a hollow design which didn't meet the needs of the Kriegsmarine, so a change had to be made. Simple thing to make a new (deeper) production die from same master design.

Best regards,
---Norm

[rishoej]

Wow really started a discussion here are pics from who I bought it from
Emeredato.de
http://www.germancombatawards.com/th...threadid=44961
Best regards
Rishoej

[Norm F]

Two more. These differ by 8 grams!

And not just Schickle production showed this variability. Robert P. previously posted his two Tombak Juncker U-boat badges which also showed a weight difference of more than 8 grams.

[Norm F]

I'm not sure I buy the theory about the dies Norm, These badges were produced 1939/40? Quite a short period of time for such changes,

Here's another example of Schickle changing dies in a short period of time when he had to. Don't forget he was out of business by July, 1941.

[rishoej]

Hi Norm
You have been a great help, hope you have convinced Paul,
Thanks
Best regards
Rishoej

[Norm F]

Hi Norm
You have been a great help, hope you have convinced Paul,
Thanks
Best regards
Rishoej

Hi Rishoej,

No problem, but it wasn't my intention to convince Paul, so much as to study a topic in more detail. I appreciate Paul's comments in this discussion and it's always good to explore why we feel the way we do when studying a badge.

Best regards,
---Norm

[paul w]

That's great investigative skills there Norm, truly, but my point is this. If Schickle used a particular die for the badge described as 2.1, why is there a discrepancy in the weights? Is 21.3 grams the typical weight of the 2.1? I can't believe they would change the dies from one production run to another in such a short period of time. The proposition that Schickle went from the hollow back design to the solid design but decided to keep it thin is just that, a proposition, at that time in the war there was no reason to scimp on materials for the war effort. The minesweeper badges you show in post 18, forgive my ignorance but they look like BH Meyer badges, what makes them Schickle? The wound badges are a different proposition completely. The design (with all makers) went from a basically WW1 badge with a swastika added, to what became the classic WW2 wound badge. Schickle had to make this change 'to keep up with the Jones's!', they didn't have to in the case of the U-boat badge. These are all just my opinions Norm, all the best,

Paul

[John R.]

Hello Norm, some interesting points you raise there, I'd like to find out the weight of Johns badge as the 3.6 gram discrepancy in weight between Pers badge and the weights given in Torpedo Los still seems a lot, all the best,

Paul

Paul,

I do not own the badge but I have seen it a couple dozen times and handled it a number of times. It belongs to Jeff V, former badge mod here, and is part of a nice group including an EK, U-boat frontspange in bronze and the U-boat badge.

I can absolutely agree with you on the feel of the badge and weight and further, that you should have kept it, not returned it. I think these light feeling badges are early war also and have tried to buy it from Jeff a number of times. He will not sell it. Wish I knew you were not liking the one you had.

I do not have the weight but it is light and when Norm and I worked on this badge's statistics for the KM book, I did indeed tell him about the light feeling of the badge owned by Jeff. I cannot explain why the badges have such variation, but they do. We cannot explain everything.

Jeff's badge is exactly like this one.

Maybe he will post it here, I will ask him.

John

[Norm F]

That's great investigative skills there Norm, truly, but my point is this. If Schickle used a particular die for the badge described as 2.1, why is there a discrepancy in the weights? Is 21.3 grams the typical weight of the 2.1? I can't believe they would change the dies from one production run to another in such a short period of time.

Hi Paul,

I think you misunderstood me. I wasn't suggesting that the difference in weight between Gordon's badge in "Torpedo Los" (21.3 g) and rishoej's example from the start of the thread with the same setup (17.7 g) was from using different dies. On the contrary, they are from the same set of dies and the differences in weight are solely from the difference in thickness of the Tombak stock used for the planchets. Likewise the 8 gram difference between Robert P.'s two Juncker U-boats is from different Tombak stock thickness -- nothing to do with the dies.

My musing on the possibility of separate dies for the Type 2.1 versus the later variations (e.g. Type 2.4) was just that - a musing. Hope that clears things up.

The fact is the weight of die struck Tombak badges of the same type can vary considerably between examples depending upon the Tombak stock thickness used for each run, as is easily seen by anyone who collects multiple examples of the same type of badge. In fact, for this very reason Gordon Williamson purposely omitted the weights on badges in his book "War Badges of the Kriegsmarine", as explicitly stated on page 19.

Best regards,
---Norm

[Norm F]

The minesweeper badges you show in post 18, forgive my ignorance but they look like BH Meyer badges, what makes them Schickle?

A bit off topic from this thread, but to answer your question there is still a tendency among some collectors to call these badges "unmarked Mayers" simply because B.H. Mayer got a hold of a few in 1941 and stamped the pins L/18 for resale. However, the Schickle catalog supplement shows this Minesweeper badge complete with the usual swastika flaw, and the setups are used on other Schickle marked products like the EK1s. This topic is covered elsewhere in the forum (like in the Schickle U-Boat thread) and also in Volume III of "The Kriegsmarine Awards" on pages 66 and 122. For this reason, these badges are now best referred to as "Schickle-attributed" or "Schickle design". B.H. Mayer's own line of zinc Minesweepers is from different tooling and with different setups from these Schickle attributed badges and Mayer's zincers are always stamped L/18, usually in the planchet.

Best regards,
---Norm