Kriegsmarine Submarine Patch. Opinions?

[Andy A]

I feel pretty good about this patch, but wanted a second opinion. Thanks.

[Andy A]

The rest of the small grouping. It came from the estate of Hans Goebler. But, I know that Hans was a regular at military shows, and may have purchased items later. His book," Steel Boat, Iron Hearts" is worth reading. Thanks.

[Martin Simon]

Hi Andy,
I like the look and patina that it has.
Martin

[Joe B]

In my opinion ... and I have been collecting since 1974 ... the sub badge in cloth is fake .... I did not see these come on the market until the mid-late 1980s .

[BubbaZ]

I agree, this u-boat cloth badge is quite common fake unfortunately.
Cheers,
Hubert

[Norm F]

These patches highlight the importance of the forums and durable reference material for the hobby. Reproductions from the distant past like this are exposed, forgotten, rediscovered, exposed, forgotten, etc. so the durable record is important to new collectors so as not to repeat history's mistakes. As Andy's post indicates, even a reputable German veteran could easily add a fake to his collection back in the day which later takes on the appearance of original.

As Jody can tell you these "K.E.E.N." machine-embroidered patches date back at least to the early 1970's. His oldest discussion threads from the late 1990's in the early days of WAF are lost but here are a couple of remaining old posts on these:

2006: http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...59#post1505259
2011: http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...42#post3931242

Best regards,
---Norm

[Norm F]

Although often untrimmed, examples are also posted with the border bearing the "K.E.E.N." mark trimmed off and sometimes sewn onto a background.

[Norm F]

Even Staegemeir got in on the deal.

[John R.]

We are fortunate to be part of a "golden age" in regards to the collection of Kriegsmarine badges, clasps, and cap tallies. I cannot speak for other parts of this hobby as I have no particular interest in it and it takes my full time attention to stay up to date with just this small part of the collecting world.

Some day, hopefully not soon, the data base will be gone, maybe even the lights turn off for this forum, for a multitude of possible reasons.

For now, we can remember most of the knowledge and old threads, but it is a tenuous thread since so many of the old guard collectors upon whose knowledge we built our databases are long retired from the hobby or have moved on.

Enjoy it while we can and hopefully others will step up as time moves on.

Old Norm must stay with us until his 95th birthday though, so we have time left.

John

[Andy A]

Thanks for everyone's input. Much appreciated. It was hard to tell with Hans Goebler's things which were old, and even harder to tell what might have been his during the war. I was able to get the manuscript to his book and a few other items for my collection. Thanks again.

[BubbaZ]

Here is a variant of this fake u-boat patch sewn onto a background with KEEN 1943 (or 1948?) stamp on the reverse.