IAB signed by diamonds holder.

[Brian R]

Thanks for posting these, Simon. I'm not a "signature guy" but I see too much of a difference between the November 1942 dated one (the first one in the thread) and the January 30, 1943 dated docs. Sure, the January 30th ones are "regime dates" but I would guess they were produced around that time. I would think there would be more consistency between them all. There just seems to be too much of a difference in the S on the various examples you have posted relative to the first one in the thread.

[Simon O.]

I'm still missing most of the AOK 20 and XIX Geb.Korps archives from 1942 and early '43, but should have them within the year, often a great source for signatures, stamps and units.

The closest i have is from Jul.43, by this time the company had its name changed.

Another point, is the stamp, if you look around (for example on Narvik shield docs) you will almost always see the '2' stamp in use, as you can also see on the Lipf document i posted, though other stamps were of course in use.

To my mind, if someone was going out to fake something like this, they've made it unnecessarily hard on themselves by trying to hunt down a unit that only existed temporarily and that you'd need to dig in to the archives to find, in fact this would seem to be one of the most unlikely awards to choose at this korps level and then, instead of copying the most commonly seen stamp used on award docs from this formation, go for one that is outside the norm.

[Simon O.]

Thanks for posting these, Simon. I'm not a "signature guy" but I see too much of a difference between the November 1942 dated one (the first one in the thread) and the January 30, 1943 dated docs. Sure, the January 30th ones are "regime dates" but I would guess they were produced around that time. I would think there would be more consistency between them all. There just seems to be too much of a difference in the S on the various examples you have posted relative to the first one in the thread.

Look at the O too, sometimes joined up, sometimes not. Had the differences been there using the same type\width of pen then i would agree, but this is a completely different type of pen nib being used.

[frankandfrank]

The other Schörner documents are with a great different to the first posting fake document from this thread. I hope you can get the money back. If you take this from a dealer let us know the dealer.

[Simon O.]

No it wasn't a well known dealer at least and it was from Germany, a guy called Swen Bieber from Leverkeusen

I absolutely acknowledge those learned opinions but i'm keeping an open mind right now until i can do more research. I've just seen far too many genuine items in archives that would scare the crap out of collectors to call oddities bad without some detective work.

It's not going anywhere, good or bad. It wasn't that expensive anyway.

[frankandfrank]

So you get your money back !

[Brian R]

I absolutely acknowledge those learned opinions but i'm keeping an open mind right now until i can do more research. I've just seen far too many genuine items in archives that would scare the crap out of collectors to call oddities bad without some detective work.

Ok, Simon. Good luck and keep us posted as to what you find out.

[Simon O.]

Ok, Simon. Good luck and keep us posted as to what you find out.

Thanks, i need to look into both the stamp and the unit amongst other things, i'm an old skeptic and tend to put my faith into verifiable facts, good or bad. We collectors are understandably a paranoid bunch but different does not equal fake.

[Archi]

Hi all !

I followed this discussion with great interest.

I am not an expert in signatures at all, but I found one thing very striking :
It seems that Schörner ends his signature always with a quick (and almost straight) dash
from left to right on top of it.
This seems to be a common pattern in all the documents shown in addition by Simon.
However, in the document to be discussed, it is more an S-typed "dash" with opposite
curvatures at both ends and looks to me very different (and much "slower")
in comparison to the other ones.
Just my two cents.

Cheers,

Archi

[Mithrandir]

There is indeed a faker in Germany who offers very good fakes of documents.
He pops up from time to time in ebay or mil123.
He makes a few sales and after a week he quits for a few months or uses another nickname.

[Olav69]

Hi guys.
I just got this KVK 2nd class document into my collection, signed by Schörner. I think it's a good one, but it's always good to get a second opinion.

Best regards
Olav

[Mithrandir]

Schörner signature

Here is a very rare war signature of GFM Schörner.
Rare because it is on the reverse side of a photo.
There do only a very small numer of war autographs exists, beside on documents.
It's a riddle why there are not more signed photos of him.
And there even does no Hoffmann postcard exist of him.