It Pays to Look Closely at Your Tinnies

[Tom Yanacek]

Hi guys,

I bought this 1925-1935 NSDAP Thüringen tinnie about a month ago. Today I was giving it a closer look and I was surprised to see that it was marked with the names of both the designer and the manufacturer. I never noticed these markings until today. Now that I know the markings are there, they jump out at me. But I don't know how I could have ever missed a detail such as this in the first place. I suppose the lighting at some of the shows is not the best, or maybe I just never bothered to look closely since it was just another tinnie.

On the picture of the reverse, the green arrow shows the location of the designer name and the yellow arrow shows the location of the manufacturer name.

Best regards,
Tom

[Tom Yanacek]

designer name:

J. Wegener Fec.

[Tom Yanacek]

manufacturer:

Wernstein Jena

[dirtfisherrob]

Nice. I go over everything with my Eschenbach magnifier. With my bad eyes, I have to!

[Capt. R]

very nice badge!

great find.

[JoeW]

Good show Tom! Never noticed the markings on mine. Now......the same maker on this, as on the Gau Tag Gera badge and the 1936 Weimar badge. What about the Gau Ehrenzeichen look alike badge? Same maker? So would Wernstein be the maker of the Gau Ehrenzeichens?

[Tom Yanacek]

Thank you!

My thanks to all for the comments.

Best regards,
Tom

[Tom Yanacek]

Good show Tom! Never noticed the markings on mine. Now......the same maker on this, as on the Gau Tag Gera badge and the 1936 Weimar badge. What about the Gau Ehrenzeichen look alike badge? Same maker? So would Wernstein be the maker of the Gau Ehrenzeichens?

Hi Joe,

Since Gera and Weimar are situated within the borders of Gau Thüringen, you would expect these particular tinnies to be manufactured by companies located within the Gau. So Hermann Wernstein of Jena makes sense since Jena is also within the borders of Gau Thüringen.

As far as the Gau Thüringen Ehrenzeichen is concerned, it is hard to know for sure since the Ehrenzeichen were not maker marked. Hermann Wernstein is a logical possibility, though. But if Hermann Wernstein did produce some of the Gau Thüringen Ehrenzeichen, they certainly were not the only manufacturer involved in production. We know this because a number of original Bronze Gau Thüringen Ehrenzeichen have been found in their original paper packets marked to G. Danner of Mühlhausen (also located within the borders of Gau Thüringen).

By the way, G. Danner of Mühlhausen is also another known manufacturer of the 1936 Weimar tinnie.

The picture below shows an original Bronze Gau Thüringen Ehrenzeichen with its matching serial-numbered packet marked to G. Danner. This image can be found in, Gau Decorations of Hitler's Germany, by Craig Gottlieb.

Best regards,
Tom