Varient Hollow Back Silver Wound Badge

[RonR]

This Silver Wound Badge made by Overhoff & Cie is identified as a varient in the recent issue of the Militaria Trader in an article by Clyde Davis which indicates that most Silver and Gold wound badges are of solid back manufacture.

Pictured in the article is a Gold version of this badge by Overhoff & Cie owned by Mr. Michael Korolevich.

Here for your comparison are the Silver, and corresponding Black versions of the Wound Badge.



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[RonR]

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[RonR]

Close up of the Black Badge..........


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[RonR]

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[RonR]

And the Silver............


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[RonR]

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[Ron P]

Hi Ron. I suspect the silver is actually a repainted black. See what others say. Regards, Ron P.

[Mike Kenny]

Both examples here are imo genuine badges. The finish on the Silver is typical for a hollow 81. The question will always remain WHEN that finish was applied.

There is a lot of speculation on hollow 81 Silver and Gold examples. A search will turn up many previous discussions. All I know for a fact is that the repainting was not recent on a "genuine" example.

Regards
Mike

[jayhawkhenry]

I will not go so far as to say they do not exist, but I am a skeptic. We all know that hollow back badges were produced prior to 1939 or so. I would need to obtain one directly from a veteran as I have not seen one yet that sighted any providence of originality.
Regards,
Henry

[Chrvip68]

I do believe in hollow issues painted for greater grade by manufacturers or by custom job, although post war painted issues exist...

The best for now is doing the aceton test, as for the hollow SWB's by the famous buckle maker you can find them quite often but personaly i'm not a believer on them...

[Edelweiss]

A pretty interesting topic.

Digging this thread out, as several were available on this very subject, and I had to chose one in order to add a little word. Starting a whole new thread wouldn't have been of much interest IMO, so I hope it will be OK with Ron if I post in here.

Two days ago, I had absolutely no idea at all about this controversial subject, understand the debate on the silver hollow "81" wound badges. I'm not a WB collector, but of course I had to own a few ; and the one below was my first. As far as I'm concerned, since day one, this badge has always been for me nothing but an "individually upgraded" (if by chance I may use this term) black wound badge. When was the upgrade made by the individual in question ? Surely period, but who knows ? It never was that important for me because it looked very much like period done, with a very nice (tunic-) worn look to it ; so I bought it from my usual local fleamarket seller for the price of a very average black wound badge, i.e. something like 5 Euros : that was 25, or more probably 30 years ago.

Of course, I have no way to prove anything about these, and it's not my intend at all to do so. But now that I see that so many identically upgraded badges from the very same maker actually exist in so many different places and coming from so many different origins, I doubt this can simply be a coincidence, or the clever work of a single greedy dealer back in the 70s. I'm very OK if advanced collectors don't believe in these "81" silver badges ; but I don't believe in the former theories either. But that's just me, of course.

I will end by insisting once again on the fact that the use of acetone to test a paint is nothing else than a sweet joke : it will remove a 80+ years old paint too ; and consequently, such a "test" will never make any difference today between a paint applied in the mid 40s or in the 70s. It will just do one thing for sure : ruin your item, quite simply.

Great infos in your forum WB guys, always a pleasure to pay a visit.

[rich1953]

As this is the latest post on the controversial subject of silver wound badges

Any idea what this is ?


http://www.a2zmilitarycollectables.c...wphoto.php?x=0

[Andreas Klein]

As this is the latest post on the controversial subject of silver wound badges

Any idea what this is ?


http://www.a2zmilitarycollectables.c...wphoto.php?x=0

Based on the small pics i tend to say this is the silver grade of the so called low rim fake and therefore postwar.

[Ron P]

Hi Ron. I suspect the silver is actually a repainted black. See what others say. Regards, Ron P.

I recant my statment. I believe the badge in review is origional. Ron P.

[Varsity]

yesterday I bought a small collection of badges from a private household in Holland and there was a gold painted '81' badge included. I thought this to be a black one which had lost all of it's black finish, but after finding this thread and taking a closer look I saw it's gold painted over black. When this was done post-war, why only with '81' marked badges?