Ball Hinge Glider

[Thomas Durante]

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[Thomas Durante]

Another Osang. Same wreath, yet another eagle.

T

[Thomas Durante]

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[Leroy]

Tom,
Good posts, as usual!
I would be very interested in dimensions and weights on these. Also, were the ones you posted already available 30+ years ago?
Good fakers usually copy SOMETHING, but they never get it completely right. That's one of the reasons I posted 2 badges, one supposedly "real" and 1 supposedly "copy". At this point, I still feel perfectly safe with the "real" example I posted, with the EXACT construction details, to include formation of the ball hinge and "flat edge" construction of the pin. How many fakes have we seen with wreath or eagle, or both, copied from an original?
Best,
Leroy

[Thomas Durante]

Hi Leroy,

True, the fakes do often copy original badges, but I would say for the vast majority of fakes, they copy the more common originals. The most common CCC fakes are the FLLs & F&BLs, simply because those are the most common originals that fakers can get their hands on to cast or reproduce. The most common Para badge fakes are often Juncker & Assmanns, which are also by far the most common originals around.

You will be hard pressed to find a fake H&CL CCC, or fake JFS para badge. It is because of their rarity that they probably have remained safe all these years. The same could be said with the ball hinge glider, these are so rare that it is no doubt much harder to find one of these to copy. Ofcourse, anything is possible when it comes to fakers and I am just merely pointing to the fact that fakes of this wreath and eagle type are known to exist.

As far as the ball hinge itself, there are originals with flattened as well as fully round balls, known to exist on RK GABs & AS PABs, etc. I wouldn't disqualify a badge outright if the ball wasn't flattened, but must look at the entire badge to see other red flags. Honestly, I cannot tell much of a difference between the one you said was OK vs. the one you said was suspect. They both look similar in hardware, finish, wreath and eagle detail, catch crimping, etc.

As for when these fakes were produced, I cannot say.

Tom

[Gene]

The wreath in posts 107 and 108 appears to be cast.

[Leroy]

Tom,
I think what was being said was that these ball-hinge gliders are EASIER to find than the others, perhaps because there were ones left over and not awarded, or for a multitude of other reasons. I certainly see comparatively more of these in a 5 year span than I do of the others. So in a sense, I suppose, they WOULD be the FLL's and F&BL's of that type.

The pin, the ball hinge and the recess for the catch are different in the two I posted, at least in hand. Perhaps my poor photography didn't show this. The measurements are also different, with the supposed "copy" being smaller in all dimensions, but heavier in weight.

I would still be interested in dimensions and weights, if you happen to have them.
Best,
Leroy

[Leroy]

The wreath in posts 107 and 108 appears to be cast.

Agreed! As do 103 and 105.

[WARLORD]

I also think that the glidder pilots badge in 107, is infact a cast copy. In the late 80's some good Luftwaffe badges and clasps were produced. These were marked with the Osang mark.

[Leroy]

A question for Tom (or Marc): Has the particular combination of ball hinge, flat-sided pin and crimped wire catch ever been found to be characteristic of any one particular maker? I apologize for not following more closely other threads regarding ball-hinge badges, but do seem to recall discussions about RK, AS and others. Has the field ever been narrowed down conclusively?

[Tim Calvert]

Here's a ball hinge Glider for sale at Schneiders Treasures if anyone wants to pick one up!!! $999

It's marked Juncker.

[Tim Calvert]

Back...

[Norm F]

Time to pull up this thread again.

Personally I'm convinced about these zinc ball hinge badges as late war production possibly few or none actually awarded, but that aside I wanted to point out a design feature.

Has anyone else noticed that all the well-photographed examples share the same groove pattern on the reverses? On first glance they look like filing or grinding marks but they obviously are not, since they are identical on every example. Look especially at the curved grooves running along the bottom of the wreath and the markings on the right of the wreath near the rivets. This phenomenon parallels an observation in an apparently rare variant of the unmarked "AS in triangle" Minesweepers as discussed in this thread.

I was wondering if this feature may represent a late war die casting process as opposed to the earlier die striking technique. Any thoughts?

Best regards,
---Norm

[Thomas Durante]

Hi Norm,

That is a great observation and very interesting. I agree with you that the grooves on both the gliders and the Minesweepers would be part of the reverse die because they seem to always be in the exact same spot.

This doesn't necessarily mean they were die cast or die struck, it just means that these marks were part of the reverse die. Whether it was part of the reverse casting mould or part of the flat reverse die used for die striking. I think we would have to look at the edges to see if we can see signs of casting such as a faint seam or injection port to be sure whether these badges were die cast or die struck.

The big difference I see between the gliders and minesweepers are the catches; round wire on the gliders and flatwire on the MS. Two makers??

Tom

[Norm F]

...
The big difference I see between the gliders and minesweepers are the catches; round wire on the gliders and flatwire on the MS. Two makers??

Tom

Hi Tom,

Yes the catches are different and that brings me back to the unknown maker ball-hinge Luft Flak badge and whether they are thought to be by the same maker as this Glider. The ball hinge Flak badge comes with both catch types - round wire, and round wire that is flattened outside the crimp. Thus in production terms that Flak badge is sort of a loose link between the Glider catch and the "AS in triangle" catch. Not much by itself but then when I noticed the similarity in production of grooved reverses between the Glider and the unmarked "AS in triangle" minesweeper it seemed like another piece of the puzzle.

Like you say, those marks could very well be in the reverse die used in die striking as well and doesn't necessarily mean casting, but for whatever reason such artifacts are not seen in struck badges as often as one would expect whereas it's quite reminisent of the reproducible reverse pattern of the late war cast Souval Destroyers.

Looking at the edges may be helpful but I'd think not the internal edges since the inside cavities may still have been trimmed afterwards. Does anyone have closeups of the outer edges to post?

Best regards,
---Norm