Golden Party Badge With Pin Repair

[sjl]

I don't think I've ever seen evidence of a "re-issued" Gold Party Badge. Seems like far more trouble than it would be worth, not to mention the problem of pouring molten brass onto the back of an existing badge and re-plating it with gold. Replacement badges were only 2.50 Marks, so not expensive to buy. More likely they were blanks engraved to order as later war replacements, although blank badges are almost never seen.

[Sonderkommando]

Re-issued as in repaired at the factory due to a fault with the number. (wrong number, upside down number, etc.)

Then when a replacement badge was required, the number was engraved onto the repaired blank badge.

I have found that the badges with stamped numbers always seem to have been plated after the number was applied, where as the engraved badges seem to have had the number applied after they were plated.

Out of an estimated 50,000 plus badges that were manufactured I would guess that there would have been hundreds of mistakes made with the numbering and I seriously doubt if they were simply just thrown away.



Brett

[sjl]

While neither of us have any real evidence one way or the other, the backplates to GPBs were just gold plated brass - pretty cheap, so I have no doubt many were thrown back into the melting pot if a mistake was made. Fixing one that has been mis-stamped would be cost and labour prohibitive. Throwing out mistakes is just part of any business cost.

More likely, the initial run of stamped-back badges had the number applied while it was still in two pieces (ie - before the enamel party disk was applied). It would be hard to put that much pressure on the brass part to stamp in the number without damage to the enamel on the front. That way you could gold plate it before applying the enamel part.

If a badge was pre-assembled for future use, but with a blank back, you would have a hard time stamping a number into it without destroying the enamel, so you would have to engrave it.

But unless you worked at a bench in the Deschler factory, I guess we'll never know.

[Sonderkommando]

I guess nobody will ever know for sure.....

But it would be good to x-ray one of the engraved badges just out of curiosity.

Sure would help to explain the file marks found only on the bottom half of the engraved badges.

[John C]

Hi,

I would like to say that I believe the engraved badges are the early ones and the stamped were the later "war years" method. I know of a set that belonged to a person who joined in 1925. It has the large engraved and the small stamped for a matched set. Also,I know of the documentation from the owner of the above set applying in 1939 for a replacement to a lost small gpb. The replacement must have been the stamped one and the engraved the original from 1934 when the gpbs were issued. Just mho.

John

[ErichS]

John, All the 24mm badges were impressed no matter what their vintage. One theory that makes sense to me is that Deschler farmed out some of the badges to jewelers who rotgraved the blank badges. The lines that you see on all rotograved badges from the pin plate down are sanding lines to remove any sharp shavings from the engraving. This theory came to me from Steve Wolfe. I guess we will never know why both these fonts were used on original badges though.

[colt45s]

do you think by 1940 when the war was going, Daggers and Party pins were done?

[ErichS]

AH Gold Party Badges were still being produced and awarded.

[Wim Vangossum]

do you think by 1940 when the war was going, Daggers and Party pins were done?

Their was on a certain moment-during the war- even a higher demand for dress daggers. Their are lots of files which are showing letters from distributers, almost begging for extra Heer Daggers etc... The manufactures could not always satisfy that demand because their material was needed to made fighting knives.

Concerning the GPB I'm with Erich. The numbered Badges were mainly given in the 1934 time (see Stephens research). The A.H. - version during the entire period.

Regards, Theo