Question about cast Luftwaffe buckle

[Vadim K]

Hi guys,

I bought a LW belt from a veteran and the reverse of the buckle looks exactly like this buckle from Gailen's site (my girlfriend finally gave me a digital camera for X-mas but I havent figured out how to work it yet lol, but it looks exactly like Gailen's photo)

I have never seen any other cast LW buckles before until I found this one on Gailen's site. How common/rare are they?

[Vadim K]

Not a single comment??? wow...

[Marc verstraete]

What is your question exactly?
LW buckles with such a bad finished back are not uncommon, especially for the second model (large eagle), although normally they are a little nicer. Many manufacturers have made such a sloppy finished buckles. I have in my collection a similar specimen.
What is the maker on the tab?
Marc V.

[Vadim K]

My question "exactly" was in my post: "I have never seen any other cast LW buckles before until I found this one on Gailen's site. How common/rare are they?"

Its next to impossible to make out a marking on the tab, plus the stitching goes right though it, but the date looks like 1940 and the maker's mark seems to be "Schm..." and "Men...en", or close to that.

[Vadim K]

all right, thanks for nothing, I guess...

[Wickie]

Hello budulai,


casted Luftwaffe buckles are very hard to find, BUT the buckle which you show is a bad quality stamped one!
As Marc said, not uncommon and not really rewarded by the most collectors.

I think the maker is "Schmölle & Co" Menden.


Christian

[Vadim K]

Hi Christian, thank you so much for your comment.
The maker "Schmölle & Co" Menden sounds about right, thats what it looks like.

"casted Luftwaffe buckles are very hard to find, BUT the buckle which you show is a bad quality stamped one!" - as I said, the picture is not of my buckle, this picture is of a buckle being sold on David Gailen's site as "cast LW buckle" (my buckle looks pretty much the same so I used this picture as an example).
I dont know if I agree with you that it is a stamped buckle. The whole point of stamping is that you see the same thing on both sides of an item. Can you really have a stamping job THAT bad, with the obverse looking perfectly fine? I doubt it.

[Wickie]

Hello again,

For myself moulded buckles have ALLWAYS a full back!
I have several reason to believe that.

Take also a look to what I wrote a few weeks ago:

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...threadid=12814


The quality of the front depends not always on the quality of the back. The most awards/badges are massiv stamped, and have a very fine detailed front.


Christian

[Vadim K]

Great thread, thanks for directing me to it, Christian.

Well, maybe Gailen IS wrong on this one...

[Marc verstraete]

Hello all,
BUDULAI, I have to say that I did not appreciate at all you’re answer to my question and your comment! “Thanks for nothing “
I might take this expression wrongly but it sounds very pejorative to me. Politeness is requested on the forum! I'm also here to help and I'm not at your personal cervice. Sometime I need time to do some reaserarch! By the way, what is your real name? Why are you hiding behind a pseudonym?
Anyway, for the information of the other interested members:
On the below picture one can see the difference between a badly stamped buckle (made by Assmann) and a full back injected one (made by SIEPER) like Christian talked about.
Marc V.

[Marc verstraete]

.

[Vadim K]

Dear Marc,

my name is Vadim and it is in included in a signature underneath all my posts, my profile has my full name, not to mention that as an Association member, I provided my personal information upon joining.