fake Gold Party badge

[JoeW]

I am still waiting for evidence that these badges are nothing more that a change in contracter or supplier to Fuess.............
Remember Fuess designed the first pattern Blood Order, had a falling out with the Party, and the second pattern BO did not have his name at the bottom of the second pattern. This could well be the case with these examples. The two patterns of the BO do not match, just as these GPB's do not match, yet nobody questions the originality of the second pattern Blood Order.........................

Gary, I'm a bit late in bringing this up, but this story about Fuess was discussed and dismissed a few years ago. Here is the link which also discussed the "Austrian" fake Fuess badges.

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=242474

I guess at that time Mr. Rivett used the moniker Jos. Fueß.

Mr. Moderator, the above link is a very interesting post and should be considered for pinning IMO. I has some original documentation and good discussion.

[Gary Symonds]

Except the Fuess fake appeared in the early 1980s.

If so why did it take you years to place it on your website?
You should have outed it immediately. I know you didn't because I watched your website for years.
A question I have asked many times.

[sjl]

'Cause there weren't any websites in the 1980s?

Seriously, my website went up somewhere around 2003. I didn't start collecting GPBs until the late 1990s and didn't make much of a study of them for a couple of years.

As I said before, it was only about 2005 when through the magic of the internet that the collecting community put our heads together and realized that there were too many with the exact same number out there that made us look at and compere them. Many emerged paired with obvious fake larger GPBs and had repeating numbers (the fakers were lazy and used a lot of 3, 6, and 9s). See the discussion from 2005 here.

http://forum.germandaggers.com/ubbth...=194468&page=5

No one could trace them back beyond 1980. There have been several refinements since then, notably the correction of the die flaw that originally had lines OVER the laurel leaves. They still have the incorrect uniform lettering, tall "C" in MUNCHEN" and badly stamped numbers with noticeable puckering around the outside.

As is often the case, something that no questioned suddenly didn't make sense anymore because we were able to compare and share information in ways you couldn't in the 1980s and 1990s.

The magic of the internet.

[Br. James]

Hi Stephen,

"... the correction of the die flaw that originally had lines OVER the laurel leaves."

On the Fuess-marked GPB, aren't those supposed to be stylized oak leaves, as are on the Deschler pieces?

Br. James

[sjl]

I believe so. They are called oakleaves in the regs (and look like oak leaves in the Deschler version). The Fuess leaves look more like laurels, but you are right - they are supposed to be oak.

[Br. James]

Thanks, Stephen! it's good to keep us all on the same page, especially regarding terminology.

Cheers, my friend, and countless thanks for your important website,

Br. James

[sjl]

Here are a couple of images of the fake badge from my website.

The back with repeating numbers, a tall "C" in München, numbers not impressed but stamped leaving a puffiness around the numbers, maker's name centered on the pinplate when on real ones it was usually slightly off-centre.



The cleaned-up version. Lettering is completely uniform like it was typeset instead of uneven and "spidery" in originals.



Older version before they fixed the die flaw with lines over the leaves.

[sjl]

Known original next to the so-called "Austrian fake".

[Jo Rivett]

"Train tracks" Genuine Fuess 1 • 2

"Train tracks" Fake - so-called Austrian fake 1 • 2

[JoeW]

Very interesting images of the railroad ties on the two examples.

The second set of images of the suspect Fuess badge display a crenelation along the edge like the battlements of a castle. And it seems the surface of the rim with the RR ties seems to be concave. Or is that an optical illusion of the microscopy image? All in all the it would appear the die to create the rim decoration of the Fuess badge is so uniform that it suggests machine creation IMO. And perhaps the die created was actually smaller than the badge planchet against which it was struck, therefore giving it the crenelation on the outside diameter.

On the other hand, the standard Fuess RR tie arrangement seems irregularly spaced at times, suggesting hand work on the die that created the rim decoration. And there is evidence that more than one die was used to produce the RR tie rim. Posts 25 and 26 in this thread:
http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...=517338&page=2

[der-hase-fee]

"Train tracks" Genuine Fuess 1 • 2

"Train tracks" Fake - so-called Austrian fake 1 • 2

I am probably the only one struggling. But could you please mark the distinguishing features ?

[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

here we go.

See You

Vince

[Jo Rivett]

here we go.

Before looking at how the working die was tooled, i would look at the basic design.
In this case, the Fuess badge is designed as one piece, with all leaves following the border, each leaf slightly curved to fit onto the next in the middle, very symmetrical, pleasing to the eye. Shows you that the whole thing is a thought up and drawn design.

The fake, however, is designed as you would expect, by a lazy forger and not by a period maker. Instead of (taking pride and attention to detail) creating a design, they created the shape of one leaf, then proceeded to stamp it around a border. Each leaf dead straight, joining onto the next at an angle.

LINK Two identical sections from a genuine & fake Fuess. (that better show how each leaf joins onto the next....as well as other things :-0)

[Jo Rivett]

Older version before they fixed the die flaw with lines over the leaves.

They are two totally different dies. Even from these images that can be seen, where the leaf "joins"onto the stalk of the next leaf on the "Austrian" fake, and with these there are no stalk, the leaf laps onto the bottom of the next leaf.

[JoeW]

Both interesting observations. Are there any detailed images of the background of the "RR-Tie Leaf" version that might show if the background die was the same or reasonably similar design. The ribbing of the Austrian is not so much RR Ties, but more like the :"rumble strip" warning on the edge of highways with perfect sharp edges.