Juncker U-boat badge, type 3.2

[Patrick W]

Just found this rare zinc version of the Juncker U-boat with heavily flawed hull and early type tapered pin. This is type 3.2 in Norm's excellent timeline.

There have been 2 other examples of this tyope posted that I could find and both described as having the flag broken off.

It would appear this was done during the manufacturing process and was possibly an issue with the cutting tool and perhaps the reason there are not many of these around as they would have been discontinued fairly quickly.

On my badge there are traces all over of the original gold finish and also very clearly over the cut area where the flag would have been.

Anyone else got one they could examine for finish in this area?

[Patrick W]

,,,

[Patrick W]

here is a badge of this type sold by Weitze

[Patrick W]

the timeline example....

[Norm F]

Hi Patrick,

That's a good observation that more often than not the flag is broken off on this variant. There was an example discussed recently in another thread (attached) which is the same variant but with a tapered wide pin and it too had the flag broken off.

But there's also an example on page 58 of "The Kriegsmarine Awards", volume 1 which has the flag intact. So maybe like you said, something happened to the trimming tool after that to render most of the flags prone to breakage at the narrow point.

On your example, it looks to me like a darkened lacquer has been applied sometime after the flag was broken off, not gilding per se?

Best regards,
---Norm

[Patrick W]

Hi Norm

Hard to say- in hand it looks like the original finish having reacted with the elements in areas, probably salt water in this instance I would guess, there is no obvious overpainting with anything but plenty of the original finish is there although faded., The flash pictures wash it out.

My opinion is that the majority of this series and all I have seen with the early style tapered pin left the factory without flags and that is why they are so hard to come by. The design was then changed as the quality control was failing....

[Norm F]

My opinion is that the majority of this series and all I have seen with the early style tapered pin left the factory without flags and that is why they are so hard to come by. The design was then changed as the quality control was failing....

Maybe. All the Tombak examples of the same design with the same large bow flaw are surely from the same tooling and none of them are missing the flag, so it seems to be a problem unique to the zinc production for some reason, and not universal since the zinc example in "The Kriegsmarine Awards" is intact. For these to leave the factory this way is mighty poor quality control.

Best regards,
---Norm

[Patrick W]

Hi Norm,

I don't have that book- what kind of pin is on the intact example?

[Norm F]

I don't have that book- what kind of pin is on the intact example?

The straight pin.