luft fighter clasp question

[RPN]

Chris, I think Frank is right on these ... unfinished.

Paul

[chris clark]

thankyou all. now i need to ask myself whether to keep hold of them or get rid??

[Frank Heukemes]

Dear Skip & all interested,

Yes, I do have pics. I made some research regarding these clasps reportedly made by S&L very recently, because I was offered one.

According to what I had observed earlier, WARTIME clasps marked with the o correspond with what Nelly shows in his posts. These MAY have been made by S&L, but other possibilities are not to be excluded.

FACT is, that S&L had the dies AFTER the war. If they always had them and were the producers of these clasps DURING the war, I do not know. But I do know that they produced (or at least sold) them AFTER the war, but with some obvious differences in finish and with a different pin. I gained this knowledge because I interviewed a friend who bought one directly from S&L in the seventies. Apparently S&L produced (or just sold) these for the collector market.

The changes in finish and pin setup seem logical. S&L got hold of the DIE, but not neccessarily the old finishing technique and the dies for the PIN setup.

Luckily, making the difference between a WARTIME made clasp marked o and a POST WAR one is not too hard, as I learned when observing and handling some more example of those. I also want to thank Paul W and Gene for giving me their opinions on this.

WARTIME examples: these have the "usual" pin we see on many clasps. The finish on these zinc clasps is also typical and has aged in the usual way. The pin is magnetic. Manufacturing quality is what you would expect from any wartime clasp.

POST WAR made clasps by o: The finish is unusually shiny and modern, resembling that of 1957 awards. It makes the surface so smooth that at first you suspect the clasp to be made of Tombak. But it is (in all likeliness) a modern type of zinc alloy. The pins have a very different and unusual shape, they become a lot thicker towards the hinge, the pin tip is also different. These pins are NON magnetic in contrast to the magnetic wartime ones..
The manufacturing quality of these clasps is more rough than on the wartime originals. Reverse shapes and cutouts are more irregular and asymmetric.
On the night fighter clasp shown as an example, the black colour of the wreath is to thick and of different quality than on wartime originals.

The POST WAR fighter clasps do not have the little = lines in the arrow application. I do not know if WARTIME fighter clasps by this maker do have these lines or not, since I have only see wartime recon and bomber clasps by that maker so far.

The rivet used on the POST WAR night fighter is also not something you will find on the WARTIME made examples.

Hope this helped.

[Frank Heukemes]

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[Frank Heukemes]

Here is another IMO post war example of a bomber clasp by this maker o. Same pin as on the night fighter. Compare to the two bomber clasp examples by maker o posted by Nelly, which show the correct, war time setup.

[Frank Heukemes]

...and a in my opinion WARTIME o marked example to compare, also note the DRILLED HOLES near the wreath instead of triangle cutouts on the example above:

[Gene]

SRNF Bronze, front:

[Gene]

Reverse