blue hj pin

[railhouse]

Now is weitze trying to sale this hj marin pin on his site next week the yellow and green will be ther to 100% real. otto hoffman have done every colour in the rainbow

[sjl]

This is how it starts - businesses get too busy, too many untrained people, or just plain sloppy, and the bad ones start showing up on reputable sites. Next they start getting accepted as original because "Mr. XXX, a reputable dealer, has one on his site".

Manions went from fairly good (a long time ago) to selling mostly junk this way, and now last time I looked has fewer and fewer items for sale as the experienced collectors have stayed away.

In the words of Joe Goebbels, if you repeat a lie often enough, people will start to believe it.

I'm sure Weitze will pull it when it is pointed out, but a fantasy badge like this should have been caught by the greenest underling there before making it to the website.

[Wiegert]

Are you talking about a dealer or a member?

Cheers
Brian

[sjl]

Are you talking about a dealer or a member?

Cheers
Brian

Hi Brian,

I'm waxing philosophical about the hobby in general and how specifically the dealer Weitze should know better. You can bet someone in future will say somewhere: "These blue HJ pins have to be good - I saw one on Weitze's website..."

Bad badges appearing on reputable dealer sites cause no end of trouble for the hobby in general because it can take years to correct an erroneous belief that a fake is real.

[sjl]

Just for the record of people coming into the middle of this thread, there is no record of there ever being a badge maker named "Otto Hoffmann". Any badge marked like this is a fake, and it's a shame they are making their way into collections and being sold by legitimate dealers who should know better.

[Don Scowen]

Just for the record of people coming into the middle of this thread, there is no record of there ever being a badge maker named "Otto Hoffmann". Any badge marked like this is a fake, and it's a shame they are making their way into collections and being sold by legitimate dealers who should know better.

Indeed. The problem isn't so much the coloured versions which are usually questioned when first encountered by novice collectors. It's the standard red version with the Hoffmann mark that are the real problem, they've cropped up a few times on e-stand as original......

Cheers
Don

[sjl]

Thanks Don - I was starting to feel that I was ranting like a cranky old man who had his bran flakes hidden

[Don Scowen]

Join the club

[stuart a.]

just out of curiosity has anyone contacted weitze to see why they have it listed as original,when i was looking also saw this on the site is this genuine or another fantasy item as i have never seen one before well not in black anyway
stu

[sjl]

just out of curiosity has anyone contacted weitze to see why they have it listed as original,when i was looking also saw this on the site is this genuine or another fantasy item as i have never seen one before well not in black anyway
stu

I think this is supposed to be (or is, since I can't judge its originality) an SS sleeve diamond for former HJ members, which was done in black and white.

[stuart a.]

new one on me thanks stephen
stuart

[colin davie]

I have tried everything to find out what those black diamond insignia were supposedly issued for... came up with zilch.

I personally don't believe they were for issue to former HJ members joining the SS as period photos of them would be very common instead of non existant.

SS or other personel training HJ members is another theory, but again there are many period photo's of trainers, including SS men, but none of these on show on those photos either.

I noticed they were included in a big stash of SS insignia procured by Bob Hirtz via a US veteran that liberated Dachau. Someone else took the photo of the large grouping, though not Bob himself if memory serves correctly, I'm sure it was posted on here somewhere if you do a search.
C

[Ron Weinand]

I have found SEVERAL of these SS HJ patches directly from veterans in my motel buys who liberated Dachau. They were common among the SS insignia found at the end of the war.
Ron Weinand
Weinand Militaria

[Bob Hritz]

The cloth HJ patch is absolutely original. I had hundreds of them from vet hoards, from former 45th Infantry Division vets who liberated Dachau.

Bob Hritz