Günther Schack Goblet grouping for review

[Sebastien T]

Fellow Luftwaffe enthousiams, hope you guys are doing well. As you may know hobby is sometimes very hard on us and we occasionnally learn on the hard way. I would like to share my story here and hopefully people will chime in for an honest, polite and constructive discussion.

Two weeks ago, I have decided to sell my Luftwaffe honor goblet that I have for few years now for sale on estand. Its a crazy piece from Günther Schack, a WW2 Ace and KC + OL winner. Coming with it, few documents from him with the exception of the Pokal certificate. Its not everyday that you can find a 174 air victories fighter ace for your collection so I decided to buy it. I never double check it like as I always do, with pieces that I am not familar because of excitement. Unfamilarity with Pokal falled into the not familar category for me at the time.... now its quite different. Anyway, everything started long ago when a friend that is not with us anymore pointed to me few little details that are different but I didn't really take attention to it to be honest.... His comments were about the white strange aura around every letters in which I have not be able to find this weird caracteristic on another example and his second comment was about the absence of patina inside the engraving!!!!

[Sebastien T]

The real deal started about a week ago when a person PM me saying that the engraving on my pokal is a forgery and that he came out from a hoard of plain Goblet found 20 years ago along with other suspicious high rank names. I don't want to start that debate again here but it could be plausible but there is also other possibilities that will be explain later. I scratched my head that day. Then a second knowledgeable person asked me to buy it and he asked close up of the engraving for double checking which I do right away. As soon I focus my macro lens on the engraving I realized something was wrong. So I send all the requested pictures and right away waiting for the answer, diagnostic felt; 100% fake engraving on an original pokal... That really hit me right in the face. So I started to do a quick study for the last week and it was obvious to me that it was not as it should be. I send my close up to other pokal collectors and all answer was immmediate and unequivocal; not an original period engraving!!!! How it can be??? So with more research I did you don't need to be an expert to notice the facts. But you'll see it even bigger than you can imagine!!!!

When I received this group I did a long time research to find the missing items. I wanted to find the original document of the Goblet and other items from him. I was able to find his hat, 3 log books, his luftwaffe dagger and his Ost medaille document which I only bought from another source. The other items were sold at an auction and I lost track of them hoping to find them back later in futur times. But I never find any mention anywhere about the original pokal document.

Supposedly this group was initially bought directly from the vet family and then later sold to my friend. Something plausible right!!!! Guess what, it could not happen that way!! The sellers of the Robert Taylor prints with all the Luft Aces signatures on them had go visit the pilots themself to have them do the signings. My source tell me that one knew Schack from the late 80’s on. At that time, Schack had told him he had sold all his documents with the original medals, so there was nothing left of his wartime awards when he knew him. They were already in collectors hands. Supposedly his preliminary RK and Oakleaves documents were in the large collection stolen many years ago in Germany. I have perhaps the only 6 existing original documents that are posted down below. However he does not remember Schack ever mentioning having a Pokal but this could be wrong obviously. Is it why you can't find the Goblet certificate anywhere when most of his document are in excellent condition because ne he may never received it?? books said he did no???

Here's the documents scans I have that are 100% original.

[Sebastien T]

Now the engraving!!! When I compare many many other Goblets from different sources and forums, all of them are slightly different, which is totally legit as they were engrave manually. But when you look closer at this one, it is so off that its just amazing!!! Here's now all the macro close up I did from the engraving. So many thing are reveal here :

First, Look at the inconsistency in the engraving. When you look to the engraving work, not a single letters are from same format, every letters are misaligned, all letter sizes are all ifferent from one to each other, the repetitive letters, like the E or the 1 for instance, are all different in shape, you can see inside the engraving how shaky the job was done, how crooked the circle letters and numbers are done, and all lines are not straight. Also, the spacing between letters, which should be equal, are all irregular and unequally performed.

Secondly, every begining of each lines is deeper and irregular compare to an original one. All this because it was made by freehand engraving and it is very unstable. The original war time pokals were done with a stencil which bring consistency; all letters are the same size, all align, inside the engravement it is cleaner and more even with a different consistent shear mark inside, the tips ends with a certain style not just by the drill bit tool shape. On the ring, you have several scratches line all around it that tell it could have been another name erased in the purpose of an upgraded??? Now look at the engraving and judge by yourself!!! To naked eyes it is not really perceptible until you see in macro shot, now you know... now its obvious.

Thirdly, there are huge mistakes on this pokal... The first is the letter W. The W is not suppose to be like a reverse M but rather two surimpose Vs. Also the diaeresis on the Ü is completely off when you compare with engraving method used on other Pokals.

So the abscence of the certificate could be explain by either that first, he never received it and this piece was a plain goblet that was used as a forgery or with the evidence of scratches lines, it could be an upgrade from an exsisting piece!!! Or another Schack Goblet is somewhere in a collection with his belonging certificate which I think its the case. Now you will say that I am rambling, maybe not!!! Another big mistake which was bring to me by my friend could explain, By 2 ways, why the document is missing or why it could be ''another one'' somewhere; When he received it, he was NOT a Feldwebel..... he will explain.

[Sebastien T]

Please thanks for reading me and for your help. It is not a great moment for me and I feel bad as I hate to do this. But now that it is doubtfull I can't sell it anymore. In the hobby simple opinion dosen't count so the best way to verify things is with all of you in the community. We all get cought once and its too bad it was on such a valuable item. I have no hard feelings. I know some will ask me for names but I won't as I promise. I hope not having comments about personal attack or questions about money, it is nothing personal and here I am looking for solid evidences, as I was requested to bring.

Thanks a lot guys

Seb

[Jelle M.]

Hi Seb,

I don't have any knowledge on the history or whereabouts of Günther Schack's pokal but i can tell you the engraving on this goblet is 100% bad.
If you find a pokal from a high ranked and famous soldier one should be very cautious and take a very close look if everything is legit. Scammers prefer these names as
high ranked pokals demand a very high price.
Many things are wrong. To start with the patina, the whole goblet seems to be nicely tarnished
while the engraving looks like it was done yesterday. Not a single trace of patina in the letters and all of them are surrounded with a white shadow around them. When you
look at the pokal from a distance, the first thing that jumps out is the engraving, caused by the odd borders surrounding the letters.
This is not enough to make a final dissmiss, i have seen alpacca goblets that are also completely patinated and have white letters in the engraving (but without the shadows around the letters).
Alpacca is a totally different basemetal
than the pokals made from 835 silver.
On the supposed Schack pokal many
other things are wrong.
If you look closely below and above the lettering, you can see file marks all over the border. THE BIGGEST RED FLAG. That means an earlier engraving was removed. Most likely a low ranked
pokal that got pimped up with the name of a ww2 celebrity. I'm sure the original recipient of this pokal was a feldwebel. Günther Schack was promoted on january 1, 1943 to Leutnant. On his pokal, that was awarded
16 days later should be engraved Leutnant and not Feldwebel. If you see all the paperwork that is included in the group (and 100% original) you will notice that one essential document is missing. The award document for the ehrenpokal!
Strange right, the pokal is there, all the documents except that one. Yes there are no higher grade documents so not everything is there, but who sells the document and keeps the pokal?? I guess it dissapeared on purpose because it already
had Schack's new rank on it. First major problem for the faker as Leutnant has one letter less than Feldwebel. So he just had to stick to Feldwebel and hope that nobody would find out.
The additional open space from the letter 'L' would have caused problems and suspicion, as it would leave marks of the erased letter that can't be filled up again. Engraving leutnant would have screwed the sequence and
equal space between the words. The
faker had no other choice than to remove everything
and than put the same word again. He had the choice to keep the word feldwebel, and engrave a new part but the contrast between a professional engraving and an amateur would be too high... hence he re-engraved the same word. That is also the reason that the word feldwebel is better executed than the others, he just had to follow a template that was already there while the other words are ‘freestyle’ and a lot worse.
I'm sure he had an egg in his pants, when he saw the original engraving and knwew what he was up to.
That poor soul of a feldwebel... got his pokal ruined for eternity and his name erased. I also believe the sum of the letters of his first and last name together are the same as Günther Schack.
The engraving itself was done in a very amateuristic way, with many hesitation. Looks like it was done by someone
who is not used to do that. The letters look absolutely crap. They are fatter and bigger than usual, uneven width between the
letters, some are also placed unusually higher than others and the engraving is not straight. Look at the dots! Incredible mistake here. The engraving on original goblets is from a high quality. If you would take a ruler and place
them
on the highest point, you will see that they are engraved very straight. Also the Ü in Günther is a total mess. I have never seen that style of Ü on original goblets before. A prehistoric smiley! Not a change at all this engraving was done by Wagner...
i
think there can be no discussion about that. Anyway i hope that you can return this messed with pokal to the seller because i assume a lot of money is at stake.
Below i try to highlight the foremost errors i can see:


Jelle

[Dietrich Maerz]

Compelling evidence of this Pokal being a fake!
The next question always is this: did you buy it from a private person (though luck might shine on you) or a dealer. If from a dealer, the case should be easy. Every honorable dealer takes such a fake back.

[Thomas Durante]

Hi Seb,

Firstly, very sorry to hear about this mess.

When you first showed me pics of the engraving this weekend, I was immediately alarmed by the lack of patina inside the engraving, as well as the the bright white halo around each engraved letter. To me that is clear evidence that the engraving is modern and not original to the Pokal.

Hope you can get your money back from the dealer you purchased it from. We all make mistakes from time to time, its part of this hobby. The true test of a good dealer is what they do when they have made a mistake and sold a forgery.

Tom

[chen]

I do collect goblet for some time.
About the engraving, just bad.
The goblet body looks genuine, but why the faker did not do a more perfect engraving rather than this poorly executed engraving, I have no idea. If he wants to sell to whoever wants to buy it, he can not just assume the buyer is not that experience.
I think if you can not return back, perhaps to sand off the engraving so to have a blank name band. I will be interested in.
Another possibility is that the goblet was not that blank name band type ( existed or not) but really a genuine goblet awarded to lesser known personnel. But the faker decided to sand off and re-engraved with a more famous name. Anyway,...

[VtwinVince]

Ach du Lieber, that is a terrible story, sorry to hear this.

[Tim O.]

I am really sorry to read about this one Seb. A lot of money at stake and an original Goblet ruined. I hope you can send it back and recover the money.

Best wishes
Tim O

[Alex Bolotnikov]

A modern engraving for me as well. No patina around the letters and quite crude font. I've never seen a blank goblet before and I think in untouched condition it was a more interesting item for collectors...

[all1knew]

that is extremely frustrating.

William Kramer

[chrisje110]

Very sorry to hear Seb, I hope you can get your money back!

[Brian H]

Pokal

Hi Seb. I agree the engraving is bad, whether it was a blank or re-engraved is hard to tell but the engraving does not conform to known originals. There were blank Pokals that had never been issued that were offered for sale in the post war years. I heard that many years ago and believe it to be true. Supposedly some were sold through veterans organizations to pilots who were never issued a goblet or whose Pokals were lost. They could have then had their names engraved on them. And I certainly can believe someone could have re-engraved some to reflect a more “desirable” recipient. It is entirely possible that even though Schack was credited with receiving a Pokal he never received one, just as some soldiers that received awards during the war never received the accompanying documents. A friend of mine knew Schack over 30+ years ago and he did not have a Pokal at the time, nor did he ever mention having one. The good news is that all the documents you have appear to be original, in my opinion. For someone to add a Pokal to those documents would obviously greatly enhance the group. If it was purchased from a reputable dealer he should honor any guarantees and return your money. I can post a few close ups of original Pokal engravings to compare yours too. The difference is quite obvious.

[Brian H]

Pokal

Silver pokal