State Office/Diplomatic large wall metal eagle for review

[Br. James]

I'm looking forward to Wim Saris' response here...after all, he wrote the book on these eagles!

Cheers,

Br. James

[mrec27777]

I'm looking forward to Wim Saris' response here...after all, he wrote the book on these eagles!

Cheers,

Br. James

i agree ...hope he deems it OK ....EC

[Marflower]

Hi
The eagle has a fair bit of powdery surface tarnish, caused by having been a shed for years. Should I try to polish it back to the original finish? Or best left as it is? Thanks
Regards
John

[no1canuck]

No doubt the design of these eagles existed but whether in this small size? I have never seen any period pictures of them. Would be nice to see some period proof of them.

Steve

[Marflower]

Sorry, must be getting dyslexic. The eagle measures 94.5 x 32.5 x 5 cm (37 1/4 x 12 3/4 x 2 inches).

[Berghof]

And I did some more research and a couple things came up. I found a Reno catalog on USM books website - Third Reich brochure advertising architectural lettering and emblems for monuments, shops and businesses. Here are some pictures. These examples appear to be quite large...scaling them to the people in the pictures. All of the heads are pointing the the left.

Here's a Reno catalog page
Reno Eagle.jpg

Reno1.jpg

Reno2.jpg

[Br. James]

"The eagle has a fair bit of powdery surface tarnish, caused by having been a shed for years. Should I try to polish it back to the original finish? Or best left as it is?"

Do we know what this piece was cast in...aluminum, or some other material? Since it's probably been sitting around for the past 78-or-so years, it doesn't look like it has been adversely effected by rust or other elements. If it were mine, the first thing I would do is to wipe it down with a damp cloth, to get the powder off, and see how it takes that. Then, if necessary, I'd give it a good bath with soap and water.

I realize that some of our colleagues here oppose cleaning an artifact in any way, but I just can't believe that dirt, dust or nicotine smoke applied to a TR relic over the post-war decades enhances it's quality in any way!

Br. James

[Marflower]

Thanks very much Br. James. I am with you on that, especially when you see how nice some of the railway eagles look. However, some want to see the ageing.
regards
John

[Military]

I don't like the "powdery finish". The tapped threads should not have those "powdery finish".

Mil

[Br. James]

"...some want to see the ageing."

Thanks, John, and I also agree that ageing is important; most collectors don't want to see artifacts that look like they just came off the store's shelf...because we know when they look like that, chances are they really did just come off the store's shelf! But ageing is not the same thing as dirt and soiling that has accumulated because of poor storage over the decades since 1945. Nicotine staining is part of that syndrome, though I know some among us don't want to remove that nicotine residue, even though it does not belong to the TR period, when an artifact was highly-regarded; it comes from decades of hanging on the wall in a bar or in a man-cave, through all the years of post-war smoking. That's anyone's choice, of course, but if I find that an artifact appears to be dirty, the assumption is that that dirt is post-war, and that artifact needs to have a bath!

Cheers,

Br. James

[mrec27777]

i would leave it as is ...EC

[Marflower]

A light wipe with the grinding wheel it is, then
Thanks