LW shoulder boards

[Tony]

Recent acquistion, a nice set of matching NCO Luft shoulder boards with
painted pips. I'm sure not of the authenticity of them to the shoulder boards themselves, but definitely unique. Anyone else encouter these painted pips before? Paint seems to be worn and doesn't appear to be a recent paint job Opinions are welcome.

Thanks,
Tony

[Tony]

.

[Gene]

Nice, too bad the tongues were cut off

[Tony]

With you on that one Gene!
But it goes with the rest of my cut insignia.

[WEISNER]

Are you sure the pips are painted? May be officer grade gold anodized the way I see them!
Kevin

[Jos L C]

Could it be toned silver ?
I've seen pith eagles that were looking gold like this.


Jos.

[Tony]

Close-up of the pip.

[Tony]

Officer pip.

[vizenz]

Hi Tony,
I saw this sand brown color on pips and devices before. And I have some in my collection.
On Heeres shoulderboards sometimes unit devices were painted in the branch colour, but why are this brownish color, and why on LW shoulderboards?

One of the cheapest colors that were used during wartime and before were made from protein. You can often find German pre WW1 photographs that were colorized, or better overpainted with this kind of colors.

The problem of light colors made from protein is that there become darker after a while. And that's the key!
I don't know if the maker of the devices or the later seller painted them, but we can be sure that the color originally was white or silverish white and the brown-yellow came over the last seventy years. Some years ago were found a box of different numbers and devices that were all from this brown colour. Today you can often find them attached to fake DAK boards, because nobody knew about the reason for this color.
Sometimes you can find devices that were white painted in a better color mix, with more paint particles and less protein - and there the color is white until today.

All the best,
Andreas

..and sorry for my bad English!

[Tony]

Hi Andreas,

Thanks for the reply and information. Think it's hard to say why and when these were painted.
My guess it's an anomoly that we'll never know for sure.

Regards,
Tony