Originally posted by BubbaZ
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This is great -- three minesweeper geeks on one thread!
![smilewink](https://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/forums/core/images/smilies/smilewinkgrin.gif)
Yes, I saw those level 4 examples with the dull left water crest and meant to change that to "sharp or dull" in the table but forgot to before posting.
![11doh](https://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/forums/core/images/smilies/11doh.gif)
And eventually obverse examples would indeed be a nice addition since perhaps it's possible to see progressive die wear -- although I would suspect that obverse die wear may be slower for these die cast badges than for die struck badges.
It's interesting to me that all the 9-wave variants, regardless of which of the 3 fonts that are seen with it, have the mark at the lowest three levels. And also perhaps noteworthy that the Level 7 with it's non-serif font seems to have more concavity to the water spout then either Levels 6 or 8 with the two different serif fonts, making Level 7 more similar to its Level 4,5 "brothers". My own Level 6 serif font badge is still en route so I'll have a better sense of it's relative concavity when it arrives, but it does seem to me that Level 7 with the non-serif font is more concave than Level 6.
Although I've currently placed them in consecutive descending order of the level of the maker mark, I suspect the true timeline may place level 7 before level 6, next to it's higher brothers with the same font.
I postulate the following train of events: After Level 5 production, the obverse die is altered or repaired by the graveur resulting in the next three 9-wave variants. The first "9-wavers" use the same reverse die as Levels 4 and 5 but with the mm moved down to the level 7 position. Perhaps after that, having gone through so many previous alterations, it was necessary to make a new reverse die for the Level 6 and 8 production resulting in a product with less concavity to the reverse of the water spout?
Best regards,
---Norm
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